Like its related sheeps cheeses across the border, serra uses no cow-stomach enzymes to rennetize the cheese. Rather, the sheep's milk is coagulated with local thistles after the milk runs through sheeps wool. A plant that can act as a coagulant for cheese is extremely rare in nature, and nobody knows exactly why it does what it does. Regardless, the end product is sharp and almost spicy.

In Southern Europe, cheese is consumed slowly and in tiny amounts, and the social norm is to treat the cheese like how a good bottle of wine is consumed - with genuflection.