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124 Pleasant Street
Marblehead, MA, 01945
United States

+1.781.797.0211

Each water harvest requires we row out to find the best salt blooms off the coast of Marblehead.

Our salt is made according to a 1,600-year-old process perfected by monks of Mount Athos, yet prepared using local sea water from the Marblehead coast North of Boston.

We are one of the few salterns on the East Coast of the United States and the only one that uses ancient, monastic saltern methods.

Unlike mass produced salts, ours benefit from a seasonality and vintage that can only occur with small batch salts. Autumn, winter, spring and summer salts are unique in that they have distinct algal, current and saline bloom signatures.

We can also vary the minerality and the salinity within a certain tolerance for our more demanding customers providing a bespoke saline experience.

You may also notice the live taste quality and delicate crystalline structure of our fresh salt that melts right on contact. Because of the freshness of our salt, you can also use less of it which makes it perfect for those looking to cut down on their salt consumption.

 

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The Taste of the Sea

What makes a sea salt exceptional?  About 1,600 years worth of practice in making it!

The Art of the Saltern

Not a solid, heavy, crystal that hits like a salt-bomb, not a shard-like flake that slices the tongue, this salt is fluffy — it presents like a gentle snowdrift of taste for your food it is rich, moist and without a trace of bitterness.  Unlike other salts it has a beginning, middle and end to it which follows the surface area of the molecules.

“What do you call this salt?!?”, asks Sisha Ortúzar of Tom Colicchio’s Riverpark restaurant in Manhattan, “I want to say it’s 'Live Salt' because it’s fresh, alive!”

This is the salt I first tasted on Mount Athos.  The salt the monks make for themselves so they can be self-sufficient.  We have remained true to the over 1,600 year old Athonite tradition and maintained the process even as we have updated the equipment by a few centuries.  Each harvest comes from a blend of 14 different locations across the cold, clear waters of Marblehead, Massachusetts, just a few miles North of Boston.  As the salt is de-watered we are constantly testing it, balancing it with the other naturally occurring mineral mixtures of the different seawaters from the Marblehead coast, like a fine blended Scotch, a Meritage wine or a Pauillac Bordeaux.

And like a fine wine, our salt has seasonality.  Because of varying algae and plankton content during the year our salt has a seasonality unique to small hand-crafted batch salts.  Our Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring salts all have slightly different tasting notes.  And of course year to year the salts also vary.  We encourage you to write the season and year of your salt to compare to different orders — but we know it won’t last that long!

We also like our Athonite salt moist.  While fleur de sel sea salts typically contain some moisture, we typically allow a slightly higher percentage.  Just like a good Scotch, this salt must breathe.

And because of the richness of the salt, we suggest that you start with 75% less salt than you would normally use and work up to taste.  This also means that Athonite finishing salt is not only perfect for those looking to decrease their salt consumption, but also friendly on the budget.  Less salt, more flavor.  Athonite salt.