Description

Salt flower is collected through a natural process of crystallization where a hand-harvested sea salt is collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks. Dried in the sun for a minimum of five days to evaporate the remaining water and subsequently packaged, keeping the flavour and moisture from the sea. It is thus optimized to maintain most of the minerals contained in this thin film salt brittle crystal, floating on the surface of the saline, making it a complete nutritional level. Sea Salt Flower is a white crystalline salt of unique characteristics.
The benefits of natural products are widely known and this salt is part of them. In fact, why use salt that has been refined, having been removed all natural elements important to health?
In Portugal there are several Salinas, the best known being the salt of Aveiro, Figueira da Foz, Ria Formosa (Tavira-Algarve), Castro Marim and the Salinas of Rio Maior.

The "fine grain" of salt is normally used in salads or grilled dishes, giving a final tuning seasoning touch, replacing in a nutritional way the use of processed salt.

Also makes an excellent seasoning mixed with herbs and citrus dried peels, called the Aromatic Salt Flower.The Artisan Salt and the Salt Flower from Ria Formosa (Tavira), are PDO certified and have won awards for consecutive years. Indispensable for anyone who likes sophisticated cuisine.

Flower of Salt PDO from Tavira, plastic box 500g

History

The extraction of salt dates back to Phoenicians in the 9th century and since then the method of sea salt exploitation didn´t change much.

Portugal with this extensive coastline exposed to winds and sun has always shown favourable conditions for the development of “Salinas” that use the renewable eolic and solar energies to produce salt. The country has a privileged geographical situation for salt production, in comparison to other European and even non-European countries.

Along the Sado, near Lisbon, came into existence more than 400 salt productions or “salinas” that served as trade between Portugal and northern Europe countries, very dependent on this product to the conservation of fish and meat.

In the 12th century, even before the Portuguese maritime expansion, Portuguese salt was regarded as a high-quality product in various parts of the world. Salt exploitation was then of utmost importance to the national economy and the Ria de Aveiro, a natural sea lagoon with a heavy production for the whole country and for large exports abroad.Today there are nearly a dozen well preserved "Salinas”.Currently it is the unanimous opinion of experts that the most effective way to conserve the Salinas (salt flats) is to keep it in business once it is a sustainable activity and a natural resource.The indusltrialised processed salt loses all compounds except sodium chloride. The natural salt contains more than 80 elements that are found in seawater.

Saltworks at Ria Formosa are considered “saline model” due to all its implementation process and acestral methods of harvesting the salt.

Tavira Salt Works: