Kilauea Onyx sea salt has a deep obsidian black color and moist, silky texture. The salt is solar evaporated with purified black lava rock to add minerals, then combined with activated charcoal for color and to add detoxifying effects. The additives compliment the natural salt flavor and add numerous health benefits to the salt. But the real fun is in the effect it brings to food. Sprinkled on grilled fish, plantains, fruit salads, pan seared scallops, or perhaps most startlingly, sushi and sashimi, is where this salt can, quite literally, make your food shine.
The origin of any gourmet salt is a critical factor in assessing its various qualities. Ordinary table salts‚ along with many specialty brands‚ are super-heated, processed and treated to remove impurities and pollution. However, such drastic steps also remove the very electrolytes, trace minerals and elements our bodies crave, resulting in salt that is approximately 99% sodium chloride‚ thus missing much of the health- and beauty-giving properties of the primordial ocean from which all life on earth arose.
Kilauea Onyx Hawaiian sea salt farms are located in Kaunakakai, on the tiny island of Molokai, and for a very important reason. In terms of distance from other land masses, the Hawaiian Island archipelago is the most isolated place on earth, which means that the ocean waters of Hawaii are as pristine as any on the planet.
But even within Hawaii, Molokai is special. Molokai is the least developed of the Islands of Aloha, with only a few thousand residents, no major resort areas, and no industry; its lifestyle remains rural and slow paced. Because of this, the waters surrounding Molokai suffer no industrial or sewage runoff, the very things that destroy the delicate balance of ocean water. In fact, Kilauea Onyx's ocean water is actually tested to conform to bottled-water standards of purity.
The saltmaker uses a proprietary sealed solar evaporation technology wherein Kilauea Onyx's source water is injected into hermetically sealed, food-grade solar pans and allowed to slowly evaporate, yielding nature's own perfect whole salt crystals. The resulting finishing salt is a very clean and yet full-flavored, ultra pure salt that is just 84% sodium chloride, and 16% naturally occurring elements--over 80 total, including critical ocean electrolytes and trace minerals.
At the salt farm where Kilauea Onyx Hawaiian sea salt is made, the salt is painstakingly harvested under the supervision of certified salt masters, who are members of the Salt Masters Guild of Hawaii, which the saltmaker instigated with the goal of reinvigorating the thousand-year tradition of salt making as practiced by the ancient Hawaiian culture, and also to train selected Molokai residents in the saltmaking process, providing them with a fulfilling, respectable career consistent with island culture.
