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I expect Cheddar to come in Semi-matured, Matured and Vintage. Each indicating increasing amount of time maturing, and increased sharpness.

The term Mild also makes sense.

However, alot of cheese, in Australia at least, come in what is called Tasty. On one brand (shown below), both Tasty and Mild claim to be "Full Flavoured". What is the difference between them?

Other brands sell both Matured and Tasty and market both as a mature cheese To me, they all taste, much the same as the Matured.

Further, there is also Extra Tasty in some brands.
One brand I found says its Extra Tasty is matured for 18 months and its Vintage is matured for 24 months.

Is it just that Tasty is used instead of Matured, for Marketing Reasons?
Is it that there are special requirements to be able to label your cheese Matured, so cheeses that have failed to meet the technical requirements, but taste much the same hare labelled Tasty instead?

Tasty CheeseMild Cheese

2 Answers 2

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According to Dairy Australia, an Australian industry association (emphasis added):

Cheddar Classifications

  • Mild Cheddar - matures for one to three months.
  • Semi-matured - matures for three to six months.
  • Matured or tasty - matures for six to 12 months.
  • Vintage - matures for 12 to 24 months.
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Typical standards are:

  • Edam and Colby – up to 6 months
  • Mild – up to 9 months
  • Tasty – up to 18 months
  • Vintage – up to 24 months
  • Epicure – up to 36 months

In our modern processed and bar-coded product world, cheese is auctioned/sold by the ton as either "frozen" for future ageing, or "young cheese" for ageing or processing

See http://www.globaldairytrade.info/en/product-results/cheddar/

Young cheese is either; aged and the packaged for sale, or shredded, flavoured, and reconstituted as some fancy cheese you pay way too much for

Buy your cheese from some hand made cheese boutique if you want the real stuff

Disclosure: I have worked on the above pretty reporting systems, but have no fiscal interest in the cheese auctions

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