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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Spice · Caffeine-free

Chile

Capsicum annuum

Dried chile peppers, whole, crushed or ground — the generic heat in twenty-nine products here, from curry powders to jerk to Tex-Mex. Heat comes from capsaicin and is measured in Scoville heat units; the shop's blends name theirs where the supplier gives a figure. The...

Heat first, then a dry, fruity red-pepper taste; the darker dried chiles run raisiny and the lighter ones bright and tannic

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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

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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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

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

Turmeric

Curcuma longa

A ginger-family rhizome, boiled, dried and ground to a powder so yellow it stains everything it touches. In sixteen products here it is doing two jobs: colour, which is most of why it is in a curry powder or a mustard, and a gently bitter,...

Earthy, warm, gently bitter and peppery, with a musky root smell; it colours everything gold

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Spice · Caffeine-free

Mustard

Sinapis alba, Brassica juncea

Seed and powder, from two related plants: yellow mustard (Sinapis alba), which is mild, and brown or oriental mustard (Brassica juncea), which is hot. Dry mustard is not hot at all until it is wet — water sets off a reaction between the enzyme myrosinase...

Sharp, nose-tingling heat once wet; before that, a dusty, faintly sweet, earthy powder

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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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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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