Maldon salt is produced by the Osborne family in Maldon, Essex. It isn’t only dried by the sun and the wind but they also heat the sea water artificially. They filter and cleanse the water and heat it until the salt crystallizes. One of the most often used salts in high-end gastronomy, it has a unique texture: it consists of fragile, splinter-like flakes. It isn’t used while cooking, so only put a pinch on the dish before serving. When one bites on it, it has a pronounced salty feel that finishes quickly. Its smoked flavour comes naturally from it being smoked over fire. Besides making it more flavoursome, the smoke also colours the salt. The first smoked salts were made by the Vikings, who evaporated the sea water on cherry, elm, beech and oak in order to gain salt from it. Today, salt is only smoked at the end of the procedure and oak is only used for smoking a few salts, including Maldon. Sometimes they even smoke it over a Chardonnay barrel, thus beside the smoky flavour the salt also slightly soaks up the flavour of the wine.