The Monteverde Cheese Factory, locally known as La Lechería, was set up in 1953 by the Quaker settlers who founded the modern town two years earlier. Cheesemaking gave the community a portable cash crop in an era before tourism, and the factory is still a co-operative producing semi-hard cheeses, mozzarella, and the very good cajeta caramel from cow's milk.
The factory shop sells the full range, plus ice cream, yoghurt and milkshakes. Short tours run on weekdays and walk you through the production rooms. The view across the dairy pastures to the surrounding cloud forest is a reminder that Monteverde was a farming community long before it was a tourist destination.