Our Salty Tale...
/“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs...and returns home to find it.”
After serving our country for twenty years as a U.S. Naval Officer, I had the desire to stay connected to the sea and to the place where I retired from the Navy, the beautiful Newport, Rhode Island.
During my naval career I was fortunate to have traveled and sailed all over the world while visiting over 40 countries along the way. I was also very fortunate to have been assigned with NATO and stationed with my family in Naples, Italy for 3 amazing and adventurous years. It was here, living in a coastal Italian region that I really learned to appreciate the use of good finishing sea salts. Sprinkled on top of fresh tomato bruschetta, a pinch to season some excellent local olive oil to dip your bread into, or a dash on top of a freshly grilled fish...nothing tastes better than seasoning a fish with the salt it swam in!
I love to cook and brought many yummy ingredients back home from Italy, but I knew these goodies would not last forever. However, having seen sea salt productions in my travels in Sicily and France has made me think of the possibility of making my own sea salt here in the beautiful Ocean State. At first the thought was a bit of a novelty. Although the more I thought about it, read and researched it the idea soon became a passion. Having studied oceanography in college, serving as a naval officer sailing the seas and having a passion to cook, made the idea of harvesting sea salt seem like such a natural fit...and it is!
It took some trial and error but learning the various and best methods to produce sea salt was a lot of fun! I also discovered that sourcing the sea water from Newport’s pristine Brenton Reef area was the best. A beautiful New England rocky coast with fast moving ocean water with an abundance of shellfish naturally filtering the water makes this the ideal harvesting location. Even though Newport Sea Salt has been tested and found free of heavy metals and pesticides, we are very judicious as to when and how we collect our sea water. Only at high tide, never after heavy rainfall and always carefully filtered. Newport Sea Salt only contains sea salt and trace minerals of Calcium, Magnesium and Potassium, which are normally associated and found in natural sea salts. Our desire is to pass along to you the very best all-natural sea salt, free of anti-caking agents and bleaches, which sadly are typical of commercially processed salts. Newport Sea Salt is real and unprocessed, it has a wonderful briny taste, and a delicately crunchy texture. Regardless if you’re a seasoned restaurant chef or a kitchen weekend warrior, it will only require a few flakes of our Reef to Table sea salt to enhance the flavor of any dish…or cocktail!
Matthew Mullins, Newport Sea Salt Co. Harvester
Our crew includes our sons, Matthew and Connor.
Photography by Maaike Bernstrom Photography
Husband and Wife team - Matt, our Sea Salt Harvester and me, Tami, the Visual Storyteller of our Small Business