Spice · Caffeine-free

Cumin

Cuminum cyminum

A small ridged seed with a deep, earthy, faintly smoky smell — cuminaldehyde is the compound doing most of it. Cumin is one of the oldest travelling spices there is, and in this catalogue it is one of the busiest: twenty-three products carry it, which...

Deep, earthy, warm, a little smoky and bitter, with a musky edge

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Herb · Caffeine-free

Thyme

Thymus vulgaris

A small woody-stemmed Mediterranean shrub, dried. Thyme is the first herb into a stew and the one that survives longest in it — unlike most dried herbs, it improves with long cooking rather than fading. Eleven products carry it, from poultry seasoning and herbes de...

Warm, earthy, woody and resinous, with a minty, peppery edge that deepens as it cooks

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Herb · Caffeine-free

Fennel

Foeniculum vulgare

A sweet, anise-scented seed — the anethole in it is the same compound that makes anise and star anise taste the way they do, though the three plants are unrelated. Fennel is the sausage seed and the after-dinner seed at once: nineteen products here carry...

Sweet, anise-like, green and warm; toasted seeds pop and deepen

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Salt · Caffeine-free

Sea Salt

Sodium chloride

Seawater, evaporated. It is in twenty-five products here, which understates it — salt is the ingredient that makes every other ingredient taste like itself. Fine sea salt dissolves on contact and is the everyday cooking salt: a teaspoon in a soup pot, half a teaspoon...

Clean salinity with nothing else in the way

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Onion

Allium cepa

Dried onion, in three grinds: granulated blooms in oil, minced rehydrates into pieces you can see, and powder disappears into a dip or a rub. Twenty-seven products carry it. Drying takes 96 per cent of the water out and, with it, the sulfur compounds that...

Toasty, sweet and savoury; none of raw onion's sharpness

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Garlic

Allium sativum

A bulb, dried and broken down to three different coarsenesses, and the single most common ingredient in this catalogue — forty-three products carry it. Granulated is coarse and blooms slowly in hot oil; minced is visible pieces that plump up in a sauce; powder disappears...

Sweet, toasty and savoury; deeper and rounder than fresh garlic, without the raw bite

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Chipotle

Capsicum annuum

A smoke-dried jalapeño, and the name says exactly that — from Nahuatl chīlpoctli, smoked chile. Smoke first, then a slow rounded heat, with a sweet fruitiness underneath. Three products carry it. The reason it exists is practical: a jalapeño is thick-walled and wet, and smoke...

Smoke first, then a slow rounded heat; sweet and fruity underneath

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Sweetener · Caffeine-free

Turbinado Sugar

Large golden crystals, made from crystallised, partially evaporated cane juice spun in a centrifuge to remove part of the molasses — which is where the name comes from, the turbine. Four products carry it. The reason to use it rather than brown sugar in a...

Clean sweetness with a light caramel note; drier and less molasses-heavy than brown sugar

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