Yulia and Kal Morsey could never have predicted their current life. She’s a trained psychologist from Russia. He’s a former banker and businessman. But here they are running their own water buffalo dairy farm, a restaurant in Palo Alto and now Morsey’s Creamery, the only ice cream shop south of San Francisco producing gelato with water buffalo milk (residents and visitors located north can find buffalo milk gelato at Pt. Reyes's Palace Market).
As a child, Kal Morsey recalls how common it was to consume water buffalo milk dairy products in Egypt. In fact, he says Egyptians have always seen it as a better quality milk overall. “The difference between water buffalo’s milk and cow’s milk is quite substantial in taste, flavor, and texture. In this country, there are so many big-name gourmet foods and you still can’t find any buffalo milk at the store.”
Yulia agrees, especially when it comes to ice cream. "I tried buffalo’s milk ice cream when I visited Egypt while we were dating 35 years ago. I had never tasted anything like it. The memory of that stayed with me all these years."
After living in the States for several decades, he never gave up hope of finding the dairy foods of his youth. Seven years ago, he decided to visit the only buffalo farm he could find in California, Double 8 Dairy in Petaluma. To this day, Double 8 Dairy still supplies restaurants (and Palace Market) with buffalo milk gelato — owner Andrew Zlot opened a gelato kiosk in 2014 but the location eventually closed.
Back then, Kal was told that mainstream buffalo’s milk products just didn’t exist. That’s when he decided to take matters into his own hands.
