Types of Cheese Chart, 65 Cheeses by Milk and Texture

Key points from the chart

• The wheel sorts 65 cheeses in three rings: the animal that gave the milk, then the texture, then the cheese itself.
• Cow’s milk takes most of the wheel with 43 cheeses. Goat has 11, sheep 9 and buffalo 2 (our count).
• The four textures are soft, semi-soft, semi-hard and hard. Cow and goat cheeses appear in all four; buffalo has only soft and semi-soft, and sheep has no semi-soft.
• Each slice is drawn to look like the cheese, with blue veins for the blues and holes for Swiss, Emmental and Jarlsberg, and an illustration of each cheese sits around the rim.

The types of cheese chart in text

Title: The Charted Cheese Wheel. The centre ring has four labels, COW, BUFFALO, GOAT and SHEEP, on small cheese board signs. The middle ring divides each milk by texture and the outer ring names each cheese. Small print at the bottom right reads “/500” on a numbering line and carries the Pop Chart Lab logo. Cheese names are given as printed, including “Gruyére” and “Parmigano-Reggiano”. Groupings were read from where each texture segment meets the outer ring.

Milk	Texture	Cheeses on the wheel	Count
Cow	Hard	Grana Padano, Stinking Bishop, Mahón, Swiss, Gruyére, Emmental, Jarlsberg, Cotija, Parmigano-Reggiano, Parmesan, Asiago, Comté	12
Cow	Semi-Hard	Taleggio, Tilsit, Queso Oaxaca, Stichelton, Maytag Blue, Monterey Jack, Provolone, Gouda, Stilton, Cheddar	10
Cow	Semi-Soft	Paneer, Colby, Pepper Jack, Havarti, Bel Paese, Tomme de Savoie, Vacherin Mont d’Or, Danbo, Fontina Val d’Aosta, Pont-l’Évêque, Butterkäse	11
Cow	Soft	Limburger, Brie, Munster, Gorgonzola, Mascarpone, Cream Cheese, Ricotta, Camembert de Normandie, Langres, Queso Blanco	10
Buffalo	Soft	Mozzarella di Bufala Campana	1
Buffalo	Semi-Soft	Buffalo Blue	1
Goat	Soft	Pantysgawn, Golden Cross, Chevre Bucheron, Sainte-Maure de Touraine, Crottin de Chavignol	5
Goat	Semi-Soft	Clochette, Humboldt Fog, Charolais	3
Goat	Semi-Hard	Majorero	1
Goat	Hard	Idaho Goatster, Garrotxa	2
Sheep	Soft	Fleur du Maquis	1
Sheep	Semi-Hard	Yorkshire Blue, Ossau-Iraty, Feta, Roquefort	4
Sheep	Hard	Pecorino Sardo, Pecorino Romano, Roncal, Manchego	4

How cheese is usually classified

Pop Chart Lab describes the poster as “a wondrous wheel charting 65 delightful cheeses from around the world, broken down by animal and texture” [1]. Those are two of several ways to group cheese. Others include length of ripening, production method, fat content and region of origin [3].

Texture is mostly a question of moisture. Wikipedia’s summary of the usual scheme gives moisture, as a share of the non-fat dry weight, of about 55 to 80 percent for soft cheeses, 42 to 55 percent for semi-soft, 45 to 50 percent for semi-hard and 25 to 45 percent for hard [3]. Hard cheeses are pressed and aged until much of the whey has gone, which is why Grana Padano, Parmesan and pecorino are often grated [3]. The same source calls grouping by firmness “a common but inexact practice”, because fat, acidity and salt also change how firm a cheese feels [3].

The milk ring is easier to check. Roquefort, for example, is a sheep’s milk blue cheese from southern France [7], and feta is made from sheep’s milk or a mix of sheep and goat’s milk [6].

Notes on this infographic

• Some texture placements differ from common descriptions. Stinking Bishop sits in the cow hard section, but it is a washed-rind cheese whose rind is washed in perry as it matures [4], and washed-rind cheeses are described as soft in character, though some are semi-hard or hard [3]. Taleggio sits just inside semi-hard, while it is normally described as a semisoft washed-rind cheese [5]. Feta and Roquefort appear under semi-hard, though feta is described as soft [6] and Roquefort as creamy and slightly moist [7]. Read the texture ring as a rough guide.
• Feta is listed under sheep only. Under EU rules it may contain up to 30% goat’s milk [6]; the chart does not show mixed milks.
• “Gruyére” and “Parmigano-Reggiano” are misspelt on the chart. The usual spellings are Gruyère and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
• The texture boundaries were read from a resized copy of the poster. Where a cheese sits on a dividing line, the grouping above follows the line as drawn.

Questions about cheese types

How is cheese classified?

This chart uses two criteria: the milk (cow, buffalo, goat or sheep) and the texture (soft, semi-soft, semi-hard or hard) [1]. Texture classes are usually set by moisture content, while other systems group cheese by ripening, production method, fat content or place of origin [3].

What are the main types of cheese?

By texture, the four main groups are soft (for example Brie, Ricotta and Mascarpone), semi-soft (Havarti, Colby, Humboldt Fog), semi-hard (Cheddar, Gouda, Provolone) and hard (Parmesan, Manchego, Comté), as placed on this wheel.

Which cheeses are made from sheep's milk?

The cheese wheel lists nine sheep's milk cheeses: Fleur du Maquis, Yorkshire Blue, Ossau-Iraty, Feta, Roquefort, Pecorino Sardo, Pecorino Romano, Roncal and Manchego. Roquefort is a sheep's milk blue cheese from southern France [7], and feta is made from sheep's milk or a mix of sheep and goat's milk [6]. Cow's milk takes most of the wheel with 43 cheeses, against 11 for goat and 2 for buffalo.

Is Stinking Bishop a hard or soft cheese?

Stinking Bishop is a washed-rind cheese whose rind is washed in perry as it matures [4], and washed-rind cheeses are described as soft in character, though some are semi-hard or hard [3]. The cheese wheel places it in the cow's milk hard section. Wikipedia calls grouping cheese by firmness "a common but inexact practice", because fat, acidity and salt also change how firm a cheese feels [3].

Sources

1. Pop Chart Lab, The Charted Cheese Wheel. The creator’s original product page for this poster.
2. Bored Panda, Our Cheese Wheel Chart Has 65 Delightful Cheeses From Around The World (July 2015), the chart as published with Pop Chart Lab credit.
3. Wikipedia, Types of cheese.
4. Wikipedia, Stinking Bishop.
5. Wikipedia, Taleggio cheese.
6. Wikipedia, Feta.
7. Wikipedia, Roquefort.

Last reviewed 30 October 2026