Salt !!!
The most basic ingredient that we use in our day-to-day life. It’s also one of the cheapest ingredient that we buy, hardly available in price range of Rs.20-25 per kg. With further advancement in technology and to make it a healthier option to not affect our sodium balance, lite salts are available where some percentage of sodium is replaced with potassium. If we go for natural sources, black salt and rock salt are the most common ones, available in market.
What other table salts are you aware about?
Have you heard about Bamboo Salt, the most expensive salt in the world? Due to its origin at Korea, it is often called as Korean salt as well. So what makes it most expensive one? How much it costs? What nutrients it contains which makes it extraordinary?
Well, bamboo salt is not directly extracted from nature, rather it’s processed to make it exceptionally different. It was originated thousands of years ago in Korea by Korean Monks. The bamboo salt has a patented way for its manufacturing and has been used in cooking, medicines, soaps and toothpaste since long time in Korea.
So how is it made?
Bamboo salt is prepared by taking Sea Salt (Bay salt) as a base ingredient. The salt is densely packed in bamboo tube. The speciality of the bamboo tube used is that it is non-dried and 3-5 years old grown to transfer the natural bamboo ingredients in salt. Once the salt is tightly packed in bamboo tubes, the open end if the tubes are closed with yellow earth. The bamboo tubes are then transferred to the furnace and stacked in 3-15 layers where they are subjected to high heat for two-step calcination process. The speciality of the traditional furnace is that it is made with yellow earth and use only pine wood or pine resins as fuel. In the first step, the bamboo tubes are heated for 2-3 hours at 200-450⁰C followed by 5-7 hours heating at 700-800⁰C. This results in release of bamboo oil and other minerals which are absorbed by the salt. At the end of the calcination process, the bamboo tubes burnt completely and only stack/column of salt remains. The obtained salt is further ground and filled in fresh bamboo tubes again for further calcination process. The same process is repeated 8 times in similar way. 9th cycle is the final roast cycle which is the hottest one. In this cycle, the furnace is operated at 1000-1300⁰C under expert supervision as it’s the most critical process. At this temperature, the bamboo tube and the salt completely melts and drain into a mould. Once the mould is cooled, the block of salt is obtained which is broken into small pieces manually or ground to make fine powder.
The whole process of preparing bamboo salt is labour-intensive and henceforth, it’s the most expensive salt in the world. The cost of bamboo salt is approximately $100 USD for 250g quantity. Converting it to Indian currency, it’ll be approximately Rs.8000 for 250g quantity (32-35k per Kg).
Talking about its composition, it has more percentage of potassium, magnesium, calcium, and manganese compared to purified salt and sea salts. The major components are Sodium Chloride (85-98%), followed by Potassium (1.5-10%), Phosphate (0.2-1%), and Sulfate (0.005-0.3%).
Due to multiple calcination process, all the impurities are burnt such as micro-plastics and make it a pure product. It also cause absorption of beneficial minerals from bamboo in the salt, henceforth enhancing its nutritional value. It contributes to the prevention and treatment of inflammatory diseases, increasing its importance in medicinal science. It also shows high radical scavenging activities (81.4%) compared to purified salt (2%).
Beyond all the nutritional aspects, bamboo salt has a distinct taste profile, making it an integral part of Korean cuisine. While other salts has rich and balanced salty taste profile, bamboo salt has hints of earthy and plant-like aroma along with salty profile due to repetitive baking process. It also has distinctive sweetness which is termed as Gamrojung flavour in Korea. The color of bamboo salt is majorly purple, henceforth called as purple salt many times.
That’s what we know about bamboo salt. There are researches further going on regarding health benefits of bamboo salts to be used in food or as medicines but sufficient literature is not yet available.
So would you like to try it?
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