In India people consume butter called ghee. You may know that breeding cows is popular in India. People breed buffalos as they have plenty of milk despite the hot weather in India. People make fermented butter out of buffalo milk then skim the milk constituent off to make the butter not to be perished despite its hot and humid weather. Its usage is wide-ranging, and people add ghee to flavor chai and curry, or use it as cosmetics or medicine.

In Japan, butter is generally produced using cow’s milk. In Europe, people also make butter from goats or sheep. Goat’s butter is rarely made because its fat globule is small and tough to produce butter. You may make 20g butter out of 1L goat’s milk. In the meanwhile, sheep butter is broadly produced and popular with its rich flavor in Europe. Besides butter, sheep milk is used for yoghurt and cheese also.

Shar Tos or yellow oil in Mongolia is a type of butter oil that is produced by heating and evaporating water off Urum or fermented skim milk. For nomadic people in Mongolia, those milk products are indispensable in their everyday life and Shar Tos is also used as oil to make fire.

Although sweet cream butter or non-fermentation butter is mainly consumed in Japan, quite oppositely fermented (cultured) butter is popular in Europe from old times. To make fermented butter lactic acid bacterium is added to cream then fermented. Butter making has been practiced from ancient times and rumor has it the butter was accidentally fermented because it took long hours to churn. Fermented butter has more richness than non-fermentation butter and a unique tangy and creamy flavor. Recently more fermented butter products are seen in markets and are attracting people’s attention.