Unrefined fine sea salt from the Atlantic coast of France, harvested on the Île de Ré by the traditional method — seawater led into shallow clay-bottomed pans and left to the sun and the wind until only salt remains, then gathered by hand.
What "unrefined" means here
Industrial table salt is washed, dried at high temperature and stripped to almost pure sodium chloride, usually with an anti-caking agent added. This salt skips all of that. It keeps a little natural moisture and the trace minerals that come with seawater and with the clay of the pans — magnesium, calcium, potassium and others — which is why it is faintly grey rather than brilliant white, and why the flavour is rounder and less sharply metallic than refined salt.
One honest consequence: because of the moisture and minerals, unrefined sea salt is typically around 83–87% sodium chloride rather than 99%. That does not make it a low-sodium salt in any meaningful sense — you season by taste, not by weight — and it should be used with the same moderation as any other salt.
Fine or coarse?
This is the fine grind: the everyday, all-purpose salt. It dissolves quickly and disperses evenly, which makes it the right choice for seasoning as you cook, for baking, for pasta and vegetable water, for brines and for a salt pot beside the hob. Coarse salt is for grinders and for crusts; flaky finishing salt is for the table.
Good to know
Unrefined sea salt contains iodine naturally, but in small and variable amounts — it is not a reliable dietary source and it is not a substitute for iodised salt if that is how your household gets its iodine.
Because it holds a little moisture and has no anti-caking agent, it can clump. That is a sign of what it is, not a fault; break it up with a fork, and keep a few grains of rice in the pot.
treatfuls
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