If you're looking for Chhurpi in Pokhara, you'll find it in many places. Lakeside shops, bazaar stalls, packaged on supermarket shelves. But finding genuine Chhurpi — the kind made from real highland milk, sourced from the right regions, stored and handled properly — that's a different search entirely.

That's where Banstola Brothers comes in.

What makes good chhurpi, actually

Chhurpi (also written churpi) is a hard, chewy cheese traditionally made from cow or yak milk in the hills of eastern and mid-hill Nepal. Good chhurpi comes down to three things: the milk quality, how slowly it's dried, and how it's smoked (if at all). Rushed drying gives you something brittle and bland. Proper chhurpi should be dense, slightly springy when you bite in, and carry a deep, milky flavour that lingers — not a flat, chalky one.

Why Ilam chhurpi is prized

Ilam, in eastern Nepal, has some of the country's best chhurpi-producing conditions — cooler hill climate, quality grazing land, and farmer families who've been doing this for generations. Chhurpi from Ilam tends to have a richer, more complex flavour than mass-produced versions, precisely because it's still made in small batches, the traditional way.

Banstola Brothers: Pokhara's first churpi shop, since 1999

Before 1999, chhurpi in Pokhara mostly meant whatever a passing trader happened to be carrying. Muktinath Banstola changed that by opening the city's first dedicated chhurpi and paun shop, sourcing directly from farmer families in Ilam rather than through middlemen. Over 25 years later, that direct-sourcing relationship is still how we work — it's the reason regulars come back specifically for our batches rather than whatever's on a random shelf.

Every Variety — Softest to the Hardest

Chhurpi isn't one product. It's a family of products ranging from fresh and soft to stone-hard and aged. We carry the full range.

Soft Chhurpi is white, fresh and milky — made from cow's milk, used daily in Nepali cooking.

White Hard Chhurpi (Non-Smoked) is dried and pressed into dense blocks without any smoking. Warm off-white, creamy color in looks, mildly sweet, clean and honest on the palate — the purest expression of highland milk in solid form.

Smoked Chhurpi is the classic. After drying, it's hung over wood fires — sometimes for weeks — until the smoke transforms its colour to deep brown and its flavour like Kurauni(Khuwa/Khoya). This is what most people mean when they say Chhurpi.

Hard Chhurpi is for those who want the furthest end of the spectrum. The longer Chhurpi is cured, the drier and denser it becomes — and the more concentrated and intense the flavour. Properly aged Chhurpi is genuinely one of the hardest foods on earth. One small piece chewed slowly can last several hours.

If you're buying for the first time, ask to try a small piece of each in-store before deciding — most first-timers end up surprised by which one they actually prefer.

How to spot low-quality or fake chhurpi

A few quick checks: real chhurpi should smell milky, not artificially smoky or sour. It should have some give when pressed, not be rock-hard all the way through with no texture variation. And it shouldn't be suspiciously uniform in colour and shape — genuine small-batch chhurpi has natural variation piece to piece. If a seller can't tell you roughly where their chhurpi comes from, that's worth asking twice about.

Paun and Dog Chew — Straight From Kathmandu

Beyond Chhurpi for human consumption, we also carry two products that have become some of Nepal's most talked-about exports.

Paun (or Titaura) is a popular traditional Nepali snack, often made from dried fruits like lapsi (Nepalese hog plum), spiced with chili, salt, and sugar in Kathmandu. It is a tangy, sweet, and spicy, chewable treat with various forms, including paste, candy, or dried slices

Dog Chew is exactly what it sounds like — and it's become a genuine global phenomenon. Hard Chhurpi pressed into chew sticks for dogs is now one of Nepal's top exports, beloved by dog owners in the US, Europe, and beyond for being 100% natural, long-lasting, and free from the artificial ingredients that fill most commercial pet chews. Our dog chew is sourced directly from Ilam — produced to consistent quality standards and available right here in Pokhara.

If you have a dog and you haven't tried Chhurpi dog chew yet, it will likely become a household staple.

Where to buy chhurpi in Pokhara

You can visit our store in Pokhara to see and taste the batches yourself, or order online with delivery anywhere in Nepal. We also stock khattu, titaura-style snacks, amala, papaya fruit leather, and our natural chhurpi dog chews if you want to explore the rest of the shop while you're at it.