Meet Mandala, the Brazilian Cheese That Tastes Like the Tropics

On a recent trip to New York City, I tasted a wheel of cheese that transported me to the tropics. Called Mandala, this vibrant, nutty, mango-hued wheel was crafted by Brazilian cheesemaker Bento Mineiro. The flavors were bold and unexpected, with echoes of rainstorm and spice. 

Mandala was born a decade ago in Brazil, but it debuted in the U.S. this month. It is aged for 10 to 12 months in stone cellars on Bela Vista Fazenda, Mineiro’s solar-powered family farm in São Paulo’s lush Cuesta region.

Mineiro’s background in agricultural genetics — he’s a fourth-generation farmer and second-generation geneticist — helped him engineer the ideal animal for the job. Mandala is made with raw milk from Girsey cows, a hybrid of the heat-tolerant Indian Gir and buttery-rich Jersey that is crossbred to thrive on tropical pasture.

But there was no roadmap for making a world-class aged cheese in Brazil’s tropical climate. So he and his partner, Vanessa Alcoléa, asked questions.

“How do we create a very fine product? What should the nutrition be for the animals? How long do we age the cheese? How do we express the place?” Mineiro recalls. They took inspiration from Alpine greats like Comté and Emmental, but quickly realized: “We couldn’t just copy and paste.”

To adapt, they imported drought-resistant grasses from Africa, and built their own below-ground cave for aging, where 1,200 wheels of Mandala rest on pine planks and are hand-washed with a local brine. “We had to experiment with every single thing,” Mineiro says. “The recipe, molds, pressing, washing.”

The result is unlike anything else on the American market. Mandala is sunny and bold, with flavors that span sweet cream, Brazil nuts, cocoa, and tropical fruit like jackfruit and dragon fruit. It’s dense but not heavy, with a smooth, wonderfully elastic texture and the occasional “eye” (that’s cheese nerd for a hole, like in Swiss cheese) from natural fermentation. The summer wheels practically glow with bright yellow color; in winter, they mellow to a golden straw. 

I had the chance to taste Mandala alongside a wheel of Comté, aged by Benoît Prince, a French affineur whose family has been stewarding this iconic cheese for centuries. One wheel carried a legacy dating back a millennium; the other, just a few years old, was born of bold experimentation and Bento Mineiro’s dream of capturing Brazilian terroir in curd and rind.

Tasted side by side, the contrasts were striking. The Comté was firm and dense, with the deep, savory richness of long-simmered bone broth. The Mandala had a luscious elasticity — supple and springy. Both offered the delightful crystalline crunch of tyrosine, those telltale amino acid clusters that appear in well-aged cheese. But while Comté lingered with umami warmth, Mandala bloomed with floral notes and a bright, tropical acidity — like a rainforest after rain, vibrant and unexpected.

Pair Mandala with a minerally Chardonnay or a bold, earthy orange wine. Or do as I did: close your eyes and let the flavors unravel, like a story told in milk and time. 

Mandala’s arrival in the U.S., thanks to importer Essex St. Cheese, represents more than just a new addition to the cheese counter. (You can find it in specialty shops like Di Bruno Bros. in Philadelphia, Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Cowbell in Portland, Oregon, with more locations coming soon.) The cheese marks a turning point in Brazil’s identity as a cheesemaking country.

“Thirty or 40 years ago, we were importing everything,” says Mineiro. “Now Brazil is one of the biggest agricultural exporters in the world. It’s a revolution; there was no footprint for doing this sort of thing.”

For centuries, most Brazilian cheese fell into two camps: soft, fresh cheeses for the breakfast table, or imitations of European styles. The idea of a raw-milk, cave-aged original was practically unthinkable.

And yet, here it is: not a copy, but a confident original.

“Brazil is an amalgamation,” says Mineiro. “From the terroir to the people ourselves. If we want to create a whole new cheese, here is the perfect place to do it.”