Salt crystals: where do they come from?
For centuries, the salt marshes of Guérande have been home to a natural treasure: salt crystals. An exceptional product, the fruit of the magical encounter between water, sun and wind, harvested by hand by salt workers using ancestral know-how. Le Guérandais takes you on a discovery of salt crystals, a true miracle of nature.
What are salt crystals?
A natural process
Salt crystals are the result of a natural alchemy involving seawater, sun and wind. Seawater is 96.5% pure water and 3.5% dissolved substances, with a majority of sodium chloride.
Salt crystals appear and form when sodium chloride molecules come together under the effect of water evaporation to create cubic blocks: the famous crystals.
This is how salt workers use the crystallization process to transform salt dissolved in water into solid crystals, giving rise to Le Guérandais salts: Fleur de sel, coarse salt and ground salt.
The principle of crystallization
Crystallization is based on the evaporation of seawater under the action of sun and wind. As this process continues, the salt concentration increases until crystals form in the basins dedicated to their harvest in the salt marshes: the œillets.
It's an ancestral technique with unique know-how. A precious heritage that the Guérande salt workers who are members of the Cooperative are keen to perpetuate and keep alive.
All year round, the salt workers work together, maintaining and preparing the various basins and canals of the Guérande salt marshes for the summer harvest season. It's a constant collaboration between Man and the exceptional land of the Guérande marshes, a magical science juggling harmony with nature, an exceptional climate and age-old know-how.
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Le Guérandais Guérande Salt is 100% natural, unwashed, unbleached and unrefined. Each year, it is harvested by hand using ancestral methods by paludiers who are members of the Coopérative in the salt marshes of Guérande.
How do salt crystals form?
Coarse salt and Fleur de sel are two different types of salt crystals. They form under specific conditions that define their textures and uses in cooking. Coarse salt, rich in minerals, is harvested from the bottom of carnations, while Fleur de sel, fine and delicate, crystallizes on the surface during specific climatic conditions.
The birth of salt
The formation of salt crystals begins as soon as seawater enters the Guérande salt marshes, where it circulates through a complex network of canals and basins.
The seawater begins its journey through the Traict du Croisic, where it leaves the Atlantic Ocean to take the path of the étiers. It then crosses the Guérande lands to reach the first evaporation basin opened by the salt worker when he needs water, the vasières. Here, the water begins to evaporate and settle out its suspended particles. With the help of a gentle slope, the water then continues its journey through other evaporation basins before reaching those in which it will crystallize, the œillets.
Then, in the œillets, under the effect of the sun and wind, the water will gradually evaporate, increasing the basin's salt concentration. A natural phenomenon that will result in the crystallization of sodium particles between them, giving rise to coarse salt crystals at the bottom of the carnations and delicate Fleur de sel crystals on the surface of the water.
Le gros sel
It's in summer, when the sun beats down on the Guérande salt marshes, that the crystallization process gets underway and coarse Guérande salt forms at the bottom of the œillets directly in contact with the clay, giving it its naturally gray color.
It is then harvested by the salt workers using a traditional tool and an age-old know-how: with the las, they gently scrape the bottom of the œillets to collect the crystals of coarse salt.
The mineral-rich coarse salt is renowned for its crunchy texture and ability to enhance the taste of dishes. Le Guérandais coarse salt is a must-have in the kitchen, where it's ideal in broths and cooking waters, but also for cooking in a salt crust. It is a natural, unrefined and unbleached salt that has retained all its natural taste and health properties.
Did you know: The ground salt is a coarse dry ground salt.
La Fleur de sel
Fleur de sel, or or blanc des marais, is a delicate and precious treasure from the Guérande salt marshes.
It forms on the surface of the water in the œillets on warm summer afternoons, when the sun beats down on the water and a gentle breeze caresses the Guérande salt marshes. The sun causes the surface to evaporate more quickly, and the salt particles crystallize. This is how the Fleur appears on the surface of the water. In contrast to coarse salt, whose crystals are cubic, Fleur de sel crystals are pyramid-shaped.
Fine, light and delicately crunchy, Fleur de sel offers a delicate texture that melts subtly in the mouth and sublimates dishes with light pinches. It is also a natural, unrefined and unbleached salt that has retained all its natural taste and health properties.
