A Super Important Study Discovers Hip-Hop Makes Cheese Taste Better

A sprinkle of aged cheese is music to our ears—er, taste buds. But we never really thought about what our cheese likes to listen to. (Rude, right?)

Well, a new Swiss study now suggests that different types of music can change the flavor of aging cheese. And the funkiest fromages? They listen to hip-hop.

With help from researchers at the Bern University of Arts, Dr. Beat Wampfler (a veterinarian by day and cheesemaker by night) conducted the study by exposing nine 22-pound wheels of Emmental cheese to endless loops of various music genres for a total of six months. The goal was to see if the bacteria responsible for the cheese’s aging (and therefore flavor) was affected by different types of sound waves.

The playlist included classical (“The Magic Flute” by Mozart), rock (“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin), techno (“UV” by Vril), ambient (“Monolith” by Yello) and hip-hop (“Jazz (We’ve Got)” by A Tribe Called Quest). Three other cheeses were exposed to high, medium and low frequency tones, and one poor wheel got silence.

Here comes the cool part: Upon examination by food technologists, they concluded that cheese exposed to music tasted more mellow and mild than non-musical cheese. What’s more, a blind taste test by chefs, politicians and artists suggested that the hip-hop cheese had a more pungent smell and flavor than the other samples.

Wampfler told NPR that the hip-hop cheese was “more fruity and more sweet.” A clear favorite. But just to be sure, the cheeses will now go through a biomedical survey to see if there are actual differences in structure.

Hip-hop cheese, coming to a grocery store near you.