The Big Cheese (3/3)
Tourists visit Vermont dairy artisans

Sights, sounds---and tastes
Other cheese makers who are welcoming visitors include 2-year-old Frog city Cheese, where native Vermonters Tom Gilbert and Jackie McCuin are reviving a cheese-making operation long run by Calvin Coolidge's son John; and Taylor Farm in Londonderry, where struggling dairy farmer-turned-cheese maker Jon Wright hand-makes 1,200 pounds of gouda a week.

One of the charms of a cheese-tasting tour of Vermont is that many of the new cheese makers are located in the loveliest, most rural parts of the state, often down small, unpaved country roads that wind through rolling, forested-and farm-covered hills. Visitors not only see cheese making but also get an up-close view of farm life, complete with mooing cows, herding sheepdogs and tractors in the fields.

Step back in time
Down the road a few miles, in the step-back-in-time village of Grafton, where the nationally known 205-year-old Old Tavern is overflowing with leaf peepers *, cheese makers are already at work at the Grafton Village Cheese Co.

Run by the non-profit Windham Foundation, which has restore much of the tree-lined, steeple-churched hamlet since 1963, Grafton's operation has 20 employees, consumes the  milk of 14 nearby farms, and is increasingly known for cheddar nationwide. But vice president Peter Mohn says that vacationers who come to watch cheese making through the glass windows at the visitors center and taste the samples will see it's still done the old-fashioned way, by hand.

"A lot of cheddar cheese today is young, slippery and rubbery. It's really tasteless," he says, with samples of Grafton cheddar that's been aged four, five and even six years.

Until recently, "tasteless" was the way Americans likes it. But they are traveling more and becoming worldlier* about food, he says. "Americans" plates are changing, he notes, adding, "You haven't tasted cheddar until you've come up here and tasted Vermont cheddar."

Vocabulary Focus
worldlier (adj) --- having a lot of experience in lif e

Specialized Terms
leaf peeper (n phr) --- 赏叶游客 a person, especially a tourist, who, at the appropriate time during autumn, goes to an area for the purpose of viewing the tree leaves that have changed colors