Jacobsen Salt Co.

The company:  Jacobsen Salt Co., hand-harvested sea salt fanatics based in Portland, Oregon.

The people:  Ben Jacobsen, who brought traditional salt harvesting methods to the West Coast after spending four years falling in love with salt in Scandinavia.

Why we picked them:  Jacobsen Salt Co. is the first commercially harvested sea salt from the Oregon coast, a rugged, all-American seaside best known for its oysters and Dungeness crab. Ben Jacobsen's devotion to traditional methods of salt harvesting results in large, fluffy flakes of salt with a minerality you just wont find in ordinary table salt. I'm really impressed with Ben's initiative--after falling in love with sea salt in Scandinavia, he headed to Oregon and wanted to find a similar product harvested stateside. When he found out that nobody has been turning Oregon's clean, cold waters into quality finishing salts, he decided to do it himself! He trucks out to the Oregon coast for each batch, transporting large barrels of saltwater to a communal kitchen facility in Downtown Portland, Oregon where he makes each batch the old fashioned way. Now that's dedication to good taste.