The Weekend Australian, May 2022
The wonderful Libby Moffet came on our Salt Sommelier experience and wrote this great piece for the Weekend Australian’s Travel + Luxury section 😊
When Chris Manson visited his parents in Tasmania nine years ago, the then British-based lawyer was bewildered that they added Maldon Salt from England to their meals. “It’s from the other side of the world and we’ve got this amazing resource here,” Manson recalls. “But they told me there was no one in Tassie making salt.” Tasmanian-born Manson and his Scottish wife Alice Laing quickly turned their astonishment into a business plan, leaving behind London corporate life to move to the island state’s picturesque east coast and create their gourmet salt works, Tasman Sea Salt, in 2014.
With the company now producing 40 tonnes of sparkling white salt a year, the food-loving couple have opened their farm gates to the public, launching a Salt Sommelier experience that includes a tour of the salt works and a tasting session to demonstrate how salt enhances our enjoyment of food.
The tour begins on the shore at Little Swanport on Tasmania’s popular Great Eastern Drive, where Chris and Alice lease a waterfront site from Bruce Dunbabin, an affable sheep farmer and winemaker who’s established a new winery, Mayfield Estate.
As we take in stunning views to Schouten Island, Chris explains how water is pumped from the sea into two nearby cooling towers where an evaporative process starts the salt production. It’s a simple but innovative technique that takes advantage of the east coast’s cool dry air as well as the thermal mass of the sea to create salt in a manner far less demanding on land and energy resources than traditional salt farming and boiling techniques. Further evaporation occurs in large tanks before the extracted salt, which is so clean it doesn’t require washing, is moved to a drying shed and then packaged.
“We have the cleanest water in the world and it’s really nutrient rich – those two things just make for a really good salt. We try and do as little as possible to it throughout the whole process,” Chris explains, adding that the salt is lower in sodium and richer in potassium than many others. Appetites whetted, we move to Mayfield Estate’s cellar door, where Alice, a former sponsorship executive and an excellent cook, has prepared a selection of gourmet tasting bites.
To set our palate, we sample fresh tomatoes (with and without salt) as well as a dark chocolate truffle (unsalted, then salted) as Alice explains how the spice amplifies the taste of food by expanding our tastebuds. We nibble some salted gravlax, then munch on oatcakes with ricotta and preserved lemons. By the time we add some of Bruce’s delicious wines into the mix, our tastebuds are doing somersaults.
Alice shares some tips on great salt pairings, along with a sprinkling of its fascinating history, including the crucial role it played in preserving supplies for armies as they marched to create new empires.
The finale is a pairing of Tasman Sea Salt’s specialties, including a pepper berry salt with fillet steak, a wakame salt on avocado mousse and a sublime coupling of smoked salt with triple brie. Cold smoked over Tasmanian oak and blackwood, the salt pairs well with light meats and dairy, Alice says. “If we do a cheeseboard at home, we’ll often just have a big pile of smoked salt on there.” It’s a combination that surprises, but testing the concept later with friends I find it’s a fabulous suggestion. And definitely not one to be taken with a mere grain of salt.