Guwahati, June 14 -- Kasturi Das

Churpi, a variety of hardened cheese, is a popular traditional snack in the Himalayan belt of Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and parts of northeastern India. Primarily made from yak milk, it can also be made using cow or buffalo milk, and even the milk ofchauris,a crossbreed of yak and cow. Arunachal Pradesh is known for itsGeographical Indication (GI)tagged churpimade from yak milk.

Recently, a farmer from the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh has developed churpi made from the milk of mithun - a semi-domesticated bovine species (Bos frontalis) native to Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland. Mithun has a very limited geographical distribution. An adult weighs between 400 and 600 kg and its p...