Recently I did a presentation on West Coast cheeses for a group of visiting chefs from Asia. After a guided tasting of the dozen cheeses I had selected, they had questions. The only one that stumped me was, “What’s your favorite West Coast creamery?” I didn’t have a ready answer but, in thinking about it afterward, one producer did keep coming to mind for its back story, its values and the consistent high quality of its cheeses. I could never name the favorite among the many worthy creameries on the Left Coast, but Cascadia Creamery is definitely on the short list.

This husband-and-wife enterprise is celebrating its 15th year, a longevity that has eluded many small, family-run creameries launched, like this one, with more passion than know-how.

Years ago, as a young couple, John Shuman and Marci Ebeling hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada. When they arrived in Trout Lake, Washington, they knew they had found their future home.

This scenic burg—population 672—at the foot of the Cascades has a cheesemaking past, but the couple didn’t know that yet. They settled in Trout Lake in 2005 and only later learned that the area’s cool, humid lava caves had been used for commercial butter storage in pre-refrigeration days. In the 1930s, USDA experts had determined that the Trout Lake caves were ideal for aging Roquefort-style cheese, a project the Federal Government championed. That discovery inspired one local entrepreneur to try his hand at a cave-aged blue in the 1940s. Business was booming for Guler Cheese (“finest quality Roquefort type”) until the founder’s wife took him to the cleaners in a divorce.

Hoping to build on this history, John began work on a blue cheese in 2010. His Glacier Blue, a mellow raw cow’s milk wheel, debuted in 2012 and immediately won me over, with aromas of walnuts, cream and toasted crackers. It has no pepperiness, no bite—just luscious butteriness.

Washington superstars: Marci and John Shuman

Other cheeses followed—all produced with raw organic A2 milk from a neighbor two miles away. I admire them all. Sleeping Beauty (which I served to the visiting chefs) is a natural-rinded tomme that smells of crème fraiche and damp cave, with a tart, tangy finish and an unusual crumbly-yet-creamy texture. It is the creamery’s bestseller, although personally I have a soft spot for Sawtooth (pictured above), a washed-rind wheel matured for two to three months that I would serve to anyone who thinks cheeses of this type are too smelly.

Just look at that beautiful, thin, even rind and the perfect symmetry of the wheel. The interior is open, semisoft and silky. The wedge pictured here was on the young side—it gets more squishy with age —but I loved that I could shave it with a plane and let the creamy slices melt on my tongue. It has typical washed-rind aromas—proofing bread yeast and aged beef—but they are way dialed back.

John told me once that the neighbor’s milk is so high in butterfat in winter that the Sawtooth made with it is almost a double-cream cheese. Even from summer milk, it feels rich and ready for melting, a great candidate for a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup.

You’ll find a list of retail sources for Cascadia Creamery cheeses on their website.

For the record, here are the cheeses I selected for the Asian visitors, chosen to represent a range of styles and West Coast dairy history. All are cow’s milk cheeses per the client’s request. The Beehive Cheese (from Utah) was an interloper.