• Origin: Satara, India 
• 1.9oz (54g) glass container  
• Process: Sun-dried  
• Ingredients: Ground turmeric  
• Tasting notes: Melted butter, jasmine flower, honey

Burlap & Barrel's Sourcing 

Burlap & Barrel's turmeric is grown organically, hand-harvested, cleaned, steamed, sun-dried and ground fresh. It's irrigated primarily using rainwater, which helps reduce the farm's water consumption, while the water-saving techniques intensify the turmeric's flavor.

The turmeric goes through a curing process in the soil before harvesting. The skin tightens and turns glossy, and the flavor concentrates and sweetens. This turmeric is particularly sweet, unsure exactly why; maybe it's because it grows alongside (and is crop-rotated with) sugarcane. It's thought that this curing step also helps avoid the bitter, chalky off-flavors in low-quality turmeric and makes the New Harvest Turmeric so sweet and buttery.

To grind this turmeric into powder, farmers drives 2 hours each way by tractor. There are other grinding facilities closer to home, but they have smaller, less-effective motors and use metal grinding mechanisms, which heat the turmeric and shed microscopic metal fragments as they grind. The more powerful motor makes an especially fine, soft turmeric powder, while the stone grinding plates help keep the turmeric from heating up through the friction of the grinding process. Since it's a shared facility in an area with lots of non-organic turmeric farms, the grinder is first scrubbed down and the first 100lbs of turmeric are discarded to prevent any contamination from pesticides or other chemical residues in the final product. The care taken at every step of the process is one of the reasons this turmeric is so exceptional. Burlap & Barrel is proud to work with this exceptional partner. 

Meet the Farmer: Burlap & Barrel turmeric is grown by Dr. Salunkhe, a naturopathic and Ayurvedic doctor, a doctor of pharmacology, a disciplined Yogi, a community leader and a passionate organic agriculture advocate. About 15 years ago, he realized that the connections between poor health and nutrition extended all the way back to farming practices, and he decided to focus his scientific expertise on agriculture. He is deeply, overwhelmingly passionate about his farm and his crops.

During a visit his farm, he told B & B that his neighbors have laughed at him and dismissed his insistence on organic methods and regenerative techniques for years, but that since B & B have been buying his turmeric (at almost 10x the going price for commodity turmeric), they've started to change their minds. The fact that B & B made the long trip to visit the farm and meet him in person was especially meaningful, both for him personally but also for his campaign to show his neighbors the value of organic farming.

Photos and information sourced from Burlap & Barrel