Disclosed is a hard or semi-hard natural cheese capable of reaching full matured within a short period of time and, after being cooked, showing a browned appearance that cannot be obtained by the existing products, which is produced by preparing a curd by adding, as an adjunct starter, Lactobacillus bulgaricus having a high peptidase activity (in particular, L. delbrueckii subspecies bulgaricus OLL1255 strain or L. delbrueckii subspecies bulgaricus OLL1067 strain) to a starting milk material and then maturing the molded curd under pre-determined conditions. Also disclosed is a method for producing the same.
