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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Spice · Caffeine-free

Coriander

Coriandrum sativum

The round, ridged seed of the same plant whose leaf is cilantro — and it tastes nothing like it. Where the leaf is green and divisive, the seed is warm, citrusy and floral, closer to orange peel than to anything herbal. That is why plenty...

Warm, citrusy and floral, a little sweet — orange peel and pepper together

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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

Paprika

Capsicum annuum

Dried sweet red peppers, ground. It is in twenty-eight products here mostly for colour and body — paprika gives a rub or a stew its red without adding heat, and it carries a soft, sweet pepper flavour that fills in the gaps between louder spices....

Sweet red pepper, no heat, vivid colour; the smoked one adds deep oak smoke

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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

Tomato

Solanum lycopersicum

Dried tomato powder, in five products — all of them savoury blends. It is in there for umami: tomato is one of the richest ordinary sources of glutamate, so a spoonful of tomato powder in a seasoning mix makes everything taste more like itself without...

Savoury and umami-rich with a mild acidity; it deepens a blend rather than tasting of tomato

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Caraway

Carum carvi

The rye-bread seed — warm, sharp, anise-like and a little bready, mostly carvone with limonene and anethole behind it. Three products carry it. For a lot of Canadian families this is a grandmother's spice: sauerkraut, goulash, seed cake, a dark loaf. It is often confused...

Warm, sharp and anise-like, a little citrusy and bready; the aroma is mostly carvone

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Sumac

Rhus coriaria

Ground dried berries with a deep red-purple colour and a clean, lemony sourness — the Middle Eastern lemon, and the way to make a dish tart without making it wet. That is the whole case for keeping it: sumac gives you acidity in a dry...

Tart and lemony from its malic acid, fruity, faintly salty-astringent, deep red-purple

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Other · Caffeine-free

Vinegar

Vinegar powder — usually red wine vinegar dried onto a carrier such as maltodextrin — and it solves the same problem as dried lemon: sourness in a dry blend that has to stay dry. Two products carry it. In harissa and in a jerk blend,...

Sharp acidity with a faint fermented depth; less bright than citrus, more savoury

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