Cheese-making class at the Imsil Cheese Theme Park · Photo: Republic of Korea (Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service) / CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)
KoreaNorth Jeolla · ImsilImsil Cheese: How a Belgian Priest and Two Goats Started Korea's First Cheese
Imsil is a small mountain county in North Jeolla, yet Koreans call it the home of Korean cheese. Here is how a 1960s experiment by Belgian priest Ji Jeong-hwan, starting with just two goats, grew into a cheese village, a theme park and a festival that draws hundreds of thousands.
A Belgian Priest in a Poor Mountain Village
The Imsil cheese story begins with one man. Didier t'Serstevens, born in Belgium in 1931, arrived in Korea in 1959 and was given the Korean name Ji Jeong-hwan in the Jeonju diocese. In 1964 he became the parish priest of the Catholic church in Imsil, North Jeolla. Imsil was then a poor mountain area with little farmland. Father Ji wanted to help villagers find a way to support themselves, and his answer was dairy farming. The hillsides were full of grass, so the idea was to raise animals, milk them, and turn the milk into cheese, which keeps and can be sold. This was at a time when most Koreans had never tasted cheese.
Two Goats and One Failure After Another
Unable to afford dairy cows, Father Ji chose goats. Many records say he started with two goats around 1965, and in 1966 he and the villagers set up the Imsil Goat Cooperative (sources differ slightly on whether the herd began in 1964 or 1965). The problem was the surplus goat milk. The village could not drink it all and could not take it far to sell, so cheese was the only option. But nobody knew how to make it. Stories tell of attempts to ferment it with makeshift tools such as rice-wine starter and a herbal medicine pot, and the first few years brought failure after failure.
Skills From Europe and Korea's First Cheese Factory
The breakthrough came from Europe. Father Ji visited cheese-making regions in France and elsewhere and learned the techniques first-hand. The dates that follow vary by source: some say he developed a Camembert in 1967 and built Korea's first cheese factory in 1968 with little more than a chisel and hammer; others say production succeeded and the factory opened in 1969. What happened next is clear. Around 1972, Imsil mozzarella started being supplied to a hotel in Seoul, which opened up a market, and the mountain village's cheese became a real product. That is why many Koreans still think of pizza and mozzarella first when they hear Imsil cheese.
Handing Everything Over to the Villagers
In the late 1970s Father Ji developed multiple sclerosis, which left his legs paralysed. In 1981 he handed every right to the cheese business over to the villagers and left for Belgium for treatment. A few years later he returned to Korea in a wheelchair, opened Rainbow House, a rehabilitation community for people with severe disabilities in Jeonju, and spent the rest of his life with them. In 2016 he was granted Korean citizenship for his contribution to Imsil cheese and disability welfare, and he died on 13 April 2019 at the age of 88. The government posthumously awarded him the Order of Civil Merit. Korea's first cheese factory and Imsil Catholic Church still stand as reminders of where it all started, and in 2026 the cheese festival was expanded to include them.
Where to Taste It and Try Making It
Most visitors head to Imsil Cheese Village and the Imsil Cheese Theme Park in Seongsu-myeon. At the theme park you can learn the history of Korean cheese and join a cheese-making class where you stretch warm curd by hand into mozzarella. Baking a pizza with the cheese you just made is also popular. The busiest time is the Imsil N Cheese Festival every October. The 12th edition ran from 8 to 11 October 2026, and the 2025 festival drew 610,000 visitors. There are plenty of hands-on programmes, from rice-flour pizza making to giant fondue and cheese stretching. Programmes change from season to season, so check bookings and times before you go.