All About Celtic Grey Sea Salt

All about our Celtic Grey Sea Salt.

 Our Celtic Grey Sea Salt is harvested from the salt marshes in Brittany, France where sun, sea and sacred tradition meet to produce the most exquisite natural sea salt.

Located between two cities, Guérande and Le Croisic, in southern Brittany, France, lie the beautiful Marais Salants, or salt marshes. For almost 1500 years generations of paludiers or salters have harvested sea salt the same way, honoring centuries old tradition of using wooden rakes to carefully skim the salts from the surface of the evaporating sea water.

The salt is harvested by drying sea water in a series of shallow pools in the summer months.

Each paludiers have their own section of the salt marsh which they manage and run, operating as a cooperative

The paludiers first fills their clay pond, from high tide waters, controlling the flow of water entering with a small gate. This pond acts as the purifying chamber where impurities drop to the bottom. Only the top of the water in this pond moves to the next pool.

The water is then moved by the paludiers to the first of the evaporation ponds. These are fairly rough, large ponds, which are designed to increase concentration of salt and continue to remove any lingering impurities.

The next movement of the water is to a smaller evaporation pond, again to increase the concentration, before moving to reserve ponds where a concentration close to saturation takes place.

The final pond is the crystallisation ponds, this is the resting place from which the water doesn't leave, and where the harvest takes place. The beds of these ponds are of the highest quality of clay.

These rectangular ponds are 7m by 10m and the greatest care is taken in their preparation. The middle of the pond must be very flat whilst the edge is a trough of 1-2 cm by 1.5m, to ensure the required volume of water for harvest. They must never dry out, and are supplied with water every day before the harvest.

Small round platforms are placed around the crystallisation ponds to allow the daily salt production to be stocked and used to transport the salt in wooden barrels by the paludiers.

When the water reaches the crystallisation ponds the saturated sea water evaporates under the effect of the sun and wind. When the salt crystallises, we say that the marsh "is working". This phenomenon begins at the end of the morning, and we start to see small, fine, light crystals floating at the water's surface, the same time the bottom of the crystallisation pond is colder than the water, the salt crystallises on the clay. This the is coarse salt that is Celtic Sea Salt.

The salt is pulled towards the platforms using wooden rakes and hauled up to form a salt pile. It takes years of apprenticeship to be authorised to carry out a harvest.

The salt drains on the platforms before being transferred by wooden wheelbarrow and stored in the "salt stores".

Our original variety has not undergone any process after it has been harvested.

Our dried variety is allowed to dry with the sun and wind naturally and our ground variety takes the dried variety that is ground into a finer grain.

Our Celtic Grey Sea Salt is a healthier alternative to most salts.  Recommended by doctors and health professionals, Celtic Grey Sea Salt is packed with nutrients and minerals.

Typical minerology of our Celtic Grey Sea Salt.