Amabito-no Moshio - Japanese Seaweed Sea Salt 10.6 oz / 300 g

Moshio literally means "seaweed salt" and displays a unique beige color and its flavor is round and rich due to the presence of ample minerals and other elements - calcium, potassium, magnesium, iodine and umami. Moshio is the earliest known sea salt produced by our Japanese ancestors nearly 2,500 years ago. Although Japan is surrounded by sea water, the country's humid, rainy climate has never been well suited for large-scale production of dry salt. Our ancestors made do with salt-ash, which they produced by spreading seaweed on the beach to dry between storms, rinsing the plants in an isolated saltwater pool, and then boiling the brine with bits of remaining seaweed in a clay pot over a wood fire to evaporate the water, crystallize the salt and reducing the seaweed pieces to ash.

This salt-ash mixture became the staple salt of the region. Today the production of ancient moshio continues and the one of the best, Amabito No Moshio, comes from Kamagari Bussan using somewhat refined more modern methods. Unpolluted salt water collected from the Seto-uchi Inland Sea is left in a large pool to stand for a while, evaporating some of the water and saturating the salt solution. Hon'dawara seaweed is then added to the salt water for infusion of its flavor and color. After some time the seaweed is removed and the salt water is transferred to and cooked in a large iron pot until it gradually begins to crystallize becoming a mass resembling a chunky sherbet. This is then put into a centrifuge to extract more water. The last step in the process is to cook the salt mass in a large pot over an open fire stirring continuously with a large wooden paddle. This removes almost all moisture and the salt becomes tiny, free-flowing granules.

Kamagari Bussan Company is located on the tiny island of Kami- Kamagari in the Seto Inland Sea off Hiroshima Prefecture in Western Japan. It is one of 3,000 such small islands in Japan. The population is also tiny, a mere 2,777 according to the latest census. In 1984 archeological digging revealed an ancient (3rd to 4th century AD) salt making pot. This find encouraged the locals to re-produce the historic ancient gray sea salt, and thus the Kamagari Bussan was established in 1998. Everyday at Kamagari Bussan 10 tons of seaweed infused water is processed with great labor and care. This production process results in only 200kg of precious, delicious seaweed salt.