Cheese tasters try some of the best in Oregon at a public workshop Saturday in Coquille. People traveled from all over the Northwest to attend the workshop on the art of making cheese and selling it. World Photo by Madeline Steege

COQUILLE - Munching slowly on a small cube of goat cheese, Christy Scheufele stopped and shook her head.

Something wasn't right.

"It's got a 'bucky' taste," she said with a frown, comparing it to a male goat's distinctively musky odor. "That's what gives goats a bad name."

The robust cheese was one of several that Scheufele, of Glide, sampled at a cheese-production workshop Saturday at Coquille's county annex building. About 60 people attended the event, most of them dairy farmers curious to learn about Oregon's growing specialty cheese market.

Organizers from ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific, a Washington-based nonprofit development corporation, hoped the workshop might stir interest in local cheese production. Though Coos County currently has 19 operating dairies, the county lost its only cheese-maker when the Bandon Cheese factory was shuttered in 2002.

"Coos County has a long history of producing dairy products," said Mid-South Oregon Coast Program Coordinator Adam Zimmerman. "The opportunity here is a large portion (of milk) that's produced in Coos County is shipped out raw and produced into other things somewhere else. Our vision is to create momentum for producing cheese (here)."

Zimmerman said ShoreBank has already invested $1 million in county agricultural-related projects, like the Oregon State University Extension Service in Myrtle Point. He added the corporation's loan fund could help farmers interested in cheese production - a notion supported by former Bandon mayor Joe Whitsett.

Whitsett, who attended Saturday's event, said Bandon is "still smarting" from the 17 jobs lost when the cheese factory closed and hoped the workshop might stimulate new business.

"We'd like to get someone back to producing cheese in Bandon," said Whitsett, who claimed the city has land available for a new cheese plant.

Should Bandon replace the defunct factory, the city would join a booming market. According to workshop speaker John Coelho Jr., of Woodburn-based Queseria Farms, western United States cheese production grew 44 percent between 1997 and 2002 and now accounts for nearly 40 percent of U.S. cheese.

That's a big chunk of cheese - especially considering Americans ate nearly 32 billion pounds of the stuff last year. And according to Coelho, the power of U.S. cheese is building on the popularity of specialty cheese factories - seven of which have sprung up in Oregon. One factory, Rogue Creamery in Central Point, even won Best Blue Cheese at the 2003 World Cheese Awards in London.

Most speciality cheese - nearly 815 million pounds of it - still comes from California, although Coelho said producers in the Pacific Northwest could match that number.

"If your milk is going to cheese, that's the growing market," said Coelho.

Though his Queseria Farms churns out cow milk products, Coelho said cheese from other animals represents a growing sector of the dairy community - especially goat cheese. According to a study by the National Agriculture Statistics Service, Oregon's goat population has grown 50 percent in the past five years, swelling to 30,627 goats - more than 9,000 of which produce milk.

While different cheeses are gaining popularity, Coelho admitted the term "specialty" can be confusing. Though usually applied to farmstead (homemade with your own milk) and artisan cheeses (homemade with someone else's milk), the term doesn't necessarily define an operation's size or production rate.

"Specialty cheeses can be one person stirring a copper pot over an open flame making 100 pounds a month with eight goats," said Coelho, though the term also applies to companies with "eight-person crews working round the clock putting out 2,000 pounds a day."

Most workshop-goers, some coming from as far away as Washington, were more interested in smaller artisan or farmstead operations. But some were hesitant after hearing of the obstacles Coelho said a small-time cheesemaker might face, such as stringent sanitation rules and steep start-up costs.

John Shank, who owns nine sheep in Greenacres, said he was interested in making cheese as a hobby and hadn't considered starting a commercial operation.

"I would be daunted, if I had, by the financial hurdles," said Shank, who's retired. "To invest $20,000 wouldn't be practical for me. I'm not looking for a second career."

Others thought Coelho's company, though successful in selling to "big-box" retailers like Food-4-Less, wasn't an appropriate example for Saturday's workshop.

Glide's Scheufele, who makes and sells goat milk soaps, owns nine Nubian milking goats - a far cry from Coehlo's 475 cows.

"He's not big by Tillamook, but he's a lot bigger than anyone in this room will ever be," Scheufele said.