A salt of the sea company.

AuthorSwagel, Will
PositionSMALL BUSINESS

Making salt from seawater is one of the oldest trades in the world. Like wine-making, the production of sea salt goes back to the earliest days of civilization. Evaporate some seawater and you've got salt, right? But that's like saying squeeze some grapes and you've got wine.

The salt that Jim and Darcy Michener finesse from the waters of Sitka Sound is composed of crunchy little crystals that pop brightly on the tongue. Their product, Alaska Pure Sea Salt, is a fine finishing salt, meant for sprinkling on food before eating, not during cooking. It sells for $16 or more for 8 ounces, 10 times the price even of premium supermarket brands. This is a market that demands both perfection and reliability of product.

To meet those demands, the Micheners spent years tinkering before bringing out Alaska Pure Sea Salt. And to their delight, their efforts have resulted in a salt that achieves what a salt expert called "a high culinary calling."

"Their salt is badass," said Mark Bitterman, author of the book "Salted" and a purveyor of specialty salts on both coasts and on the web. "I don't want to say that it's the best because there's a lot of good stuff out there, but it's one of the definitely awesome salts of North America."

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Less Than 1 Percent

Hundreds of millions of tons of salt are produced worldwide each year, but the bulk is for industrial and agricultural uses. Salt for eating represents only about 3 percent of the total. Most table salt is mined from mineral deposits or from salty marshes, where salt naturally accrues. Those salts are processed to have more uniform cube-shaped crystals, which may be bleached and may have an anti-caking agent to keep the salt from clogging up the shaker.

Finishing sea salts such as Alaska Pure are less than 1 percent of the table salt market. They get a much more delicate treatment. The right combination of ingredients, time and temperature can coax out of the seawater perfect crystals of sodium chloride. A few flakes of Alaska Pure's little pyramids feel crunchy, but melt on the tongue, releasing a clean saltiness, quite different from ordinary table salt.

The salt is produced in a plain-looking building in Sitka with equipment that Jim designed and was custom-made in Sitka. The Micheners are protective about the particulars of their process and asked that even the smallest details be kept under wraps. It's no wonder they're careful. The production of artisan salts in North America is...

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