A Northampton County couple recently started a business making gourmet sea salt from the pristine waters off Virginia's barrier islands.
David and Anna Lee, who moved to Cape Charles full time in 2014, started Barrier Islands Salt Co. last fall, after four years of research.
"We are the first and only coastal Virginia salt makers since the 1700s," said Anna Lee.
It takes about two to three weeks, start to finish, to make a batch of sea salt from water they harvest off Cobb's Island.
The finished product is crunchy, white flakes of salt, with a flavor unique to the waters from which it comes.
It took time — and around 30 batches of salt — to refine the process to get the end product for which they were looking.
"We didn't just want to do it — we wanted to do it to a culinary grade of finishing salt," Lee said.
The idea of producing sea salt seemed like a good fit with their own work backgrounds — and with the coastal lifestyle they chose by moving to the Eastern Shore.
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The purity of the water off the Virginia barrier islands — the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier islands on the East Coast — also was a plus as they considered starting a salt business.
"We've got this amazing water here. We moved here for this coastal lifestyle, and we've got this great resource — let's just see if this works here," Lee said, adding, "We really didn't know what would happen."
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David, who spent 25 years in the Coast Guard, is a boat captain for the University of Virginia's Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center in Oyster — so he knows the waters surrounding Virginia's barrier islands well.
Anna Lee's career has been in the specialty foods industry. When she worked at McCormick, the large spice company, she launched the sea salt business for the company's gourmet spice brand, learning a lot about salt in the process.
Most sea salt sold in the United States comes from other countries, but "we've got the same water right here," Lee said.
Around that time, they noticed some small companies were starting to produce sea salt in the United States, on the West Coast and in Maine.
They decided to launch their own business on Virginia's Eastern Shore, where salt making has a long history.
Eastern Shore sea salt history dates to Colonial times
While the salt-making business so far is a part-time endeavor, the Lees like the fact that they can "have a job right here in the community. We have both lived all over the place, and just wanted to ... actually have jobs at the community level, instead of thinking about it at the national level — form connections and settle in somewhere," Lee said.
Additionally, as they learned more about the Eastern Shore's food history, they like the idea of being part of that legacy.
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The Colonial history of salt making on the Eastern Shore dates to 1614, when Sir Thomas Dale sent colonists to Smith Island to make salt — a necessary item for food preservation, and therefore, survival — for the Jamestown colony.
"We loved that aspect of being part of continuing that tradition. We also wanted to preserve the stories of the barrier islands" — in particular, stories about Nathan Cobb Sr., for whom Cobb's Island is named, she said, adding, "We just started getting deeper and deeper into it."
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Cobb, as the story goes, purchased the island for 100 bags of salt, which he boiled on the island.
How is sea salt made?
Production for now is home-based, but the Lees plan to move the operation in April to a facility in nearby Cheriton.
The salt-making process starts with David Lee heading out in a boat to waters off Cobb's Island, where he fills two 55-gallon containers with seawater. He goes out at high tide to an area where the water is about 60 feet deep.
Collecting the water by boat is unusual in the sea salt business, Anna Lee said — most collect sea water from the shoreline, where sediment and pollutants might be more prevalent.
Back at home, they let the water sit for a day, then it is filtered three times before they start the long process of evaporating the water in a large kettle over heat.
After several days, the liquid becomes very briny and thick.
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At that point, they transfer it to a large, shallow metal evaporation pan like those used for maple syrup production, where it continues to reduce over very low heat until salt flakes begin to form.
They scoop the salt out and spread it on perforated trays, which go into a drying rack in a drying room.
While it is drying, they rake the salt to help it dry uniformly and not stick together.
Once the salt is dry, they jar it.
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Between 20 and 24 pounds of salt result from the 100 or so gallons of sea water from which they started.
The finished product has a unique taste and texture, stemming from its origin.
The Lees speak of "merroir" — the unique set of local water conditions affecting the finished salt — similarly to the way winemakers refer to the "terroir" that results in a particular wine.
Where can I find Virginia sea salt?
Barrier Islands Salt Co. has had a lot of support from local restaurants, shops and cooks since it started, and is becoming well-known in the region.
"I think being in a smaller community is just the place to be when you are launching a business," Lee said.
The staff of the Barrier Islands Center, a museum in Machipongo, "have been huge supporters of ours," she said.
The historic kitchen on the museum grounds is in the process of being restored, and the plan is, once the restoration is completed, to have a display inside about the history of salt in Virginia, featuring the company's sea salt.
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Additionally, Barrier Islands Salt Co. salt has been featured on menus by several local chefs, including Chef Jason Van Marter, who hosted a launch party at his Cheriton restaurant, The Local.
The salt recently was chosen to be included on the spring 2019 menu at the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, Maryland.
Barrier Islands Salt is available at 13 retail stores from Cape Charles, Virginia, to Ocean City, Maryland, including at:
"We can't make it fast enough, which is an amazing challenge to have," Lee said.
Plans for the future include adding an e-commerce option to the company website, www.barrierislandssalt.com, and introducing new items — one product in the works is a rose sea salt using Chatham Vineyards Rose Wine.
"We want to do more of that kind of flavor work, where we are partnering with other local businesses, and really make the flavors that we introduce specific to the area," she said.
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