Before anything goes on the Common Tides menu, I ask the same question: where does it come from? The coffee comes from Cerrado Mineiro in Brazil. The matcha comes straight from a family farm in Shizuoka, Japan. The honey comes from a local beekeeper. And starting now, the sea salt that finishes the salted caramel latte comes from the Atlantic Ocean at Wrightsville Beach.
Common Tides has partnered with Sea Love Sea Salt, a North Carolina company that hand harvests solar evaporated sea salt from local seawater. Their Pure Sea Salt is now the salt in every salted drink I make: the salted caramel latte, the salted maple latte, and the salted honey latte. Same ocean you swim in, same salt on your latte.
Sea Love Pure Sea Salt, made from the same ocean it is photographed on. Photo courtesy of Sea Love Sea Salt Co.
Salt from the Ocean Right Here
Sea Love Sea Salt was founded by Jeanette Philips and Jason Zombron, two people who moved their lives toward the coast and built a craft business on it. Their tagline says it all: from the ocean to your table. Everything starts with seawater pulled at Wrightsville Beach, the same stretch of Atlantic where half of Wilmington spends its weekends.
And if you are wondering about putting beach water in your latte, so did I. Their pull site is monitored by the NC Division of Marine Fisheries, which tests water quality year round at 240 sites along the coast, including the exact spot where they collect. The water is filtered before it ever touches a tray, and the finished salt is 100% natural with no chemicals or outside agents. Nothing added, everything checked.
Sun, Seawater, and Patience
What sold me on Sea Love was the process. There are faster ways to make salt. Big producers boil it out or refine it down until it is a white powder with the character stripped away. Sea Love does it the slow way, and the slow way is the whole point.
They haul seawater from Wrightsville Beach in a 275 gallon tank, nearly 3,000 pounds of ocean per trip, out to their farm in Burgaw. If Burgaw sounds familiar, it should. It is the same small town where we pour coffee at Old River Farms. The water is filtered, poured into trays by hand, and left alone in two solar greenhouses they call the salthouse. No boiling. No shortcuts. Just the sun doing the work.
Depending on the sun and the weather, a batch takes three to seven weeks to evaporate. As the water disappears, crystals form on the surface and along the bottom of the trays, and every batch comes out with its own pattern. When the salt is ready, they scrape the crystals into cheesecloth bags and hang them up to drip dry.
Salt crystals forming in the evaporation trays. Every batch dries into its own pattern. Photo courtesy of Sea Love Sea Salt Co.
That gentle finish matters. Because the salt is never blasted with heat or heavy processing, it keeps the trace minerals the ocean put there, things like magnesium, potassium, and calcium. That is what table salt loses when it gets bleached and treated with anticaking agents, and it is why Sea Love's salt actually tastes like something instead of just tasting sharp. The crystals have a crunch to them, and each jar is inspected by hand before it is sifted, ground, and packed in small batches.
Jeanette and Jason hanging freshly harvested salt in cheesecloth bags to drip dry. Photo courtesy of Sea Love Sea Salt Co.
Sea Love Sea Salt Co.
A North Carolina craft salt company founded by Jeanette Philips and Jason Zombron. They pull seawater at Wrightsville Beach and solar evaporate it into hand harvested sea salt, pure and infused varieties both, in small batches at their farm in Burgaw. See the full process and shop at sealoveseasalt.com.
Three Salted Drinks, One Local Salt
The salted caramel latte is one of the most popular drinks at the trailer, and salt is not a garnish on that drink. It is the thing that makes it work. The caramel brings the sweet, the espresso brings the depth, and the salt is what snaps it all into focus. When the salt has real character, the whole drink gets better. Here is where you will taste Sea Love at Common Tides:
Salted Caramel Latte
The fan favorite. Caramel, espresso, and steamed milk, finished with Sea Love pure sea salt. Sweet, deep, and just salty enough.
Salted Maple Latte
Maple and espresso were made for each other. The sea salt keeps the maple honest so it never tips into syrupy sweet.
Salted Honey Latte
Honey from a local beekeeper, salt from the local ocean. Two local partners meeting in one cup, and it tastes like it.
"The caramel gets the credit, but the salt does the work. Now that salt comes from the ocean right here."
Why I Keep Partnering Local
This is the second local partnership we have shared on the blog, and it will not be the last. The plan is simple: work with as many local companies as I can, so the money spent at the trailer keeps working in the local economy. The honey in the salted honey latte comes from a local beekeeper. The dog treats at the window come from Tails and Trails, a local company that cares about ingredients the way I do. And now the salt on three of our drinks is made from the ocean a few miles from wherever the trailer is parked.
Small businesses do their best work when they back each other. Every one of these partners makes something better than the mass produced version, and every one of them makes Common Tides better too. That is not charity. That is just how a coastal town should eat and drink.
From the ocean to your latte. Every salted drink at Common Tides, the salted caramel latte, the salted maple latte, and the salted honey latte, is now finished with Sea Love pure sea salt, hand harvested from Wrightsville Beach seawater and solar evaporated in Burgaw NC.