The Sabor Co.

Our very first blog is up!

A caramalised onion pulao made with simple ingredients that are more than likely to be already sitting in your pantry and fridge

Simple Caramalised Onion Pulao Recipe 5 minutes of prep time, a few simple ingredients and you can make a flavourful caramalised onion pulao. Enjoy with curries or on its own.

All ready for dispatch! Peppercorns, peppercorns and more peppercorns coming our way.

Standing proud next to his pepper vines, our farmer friend Ashwin.

From his plantation to your pantry, we get you some of the finest grades of Indian peppercorns, aka Tellicherry and Malabar.

The 2024 harvest is sitting on pallets as I write this post, ready for dispatch to Australian shores.

Things have been rather quiet on the feed, thanks to the flu going around. But here I am back playing with my spices in the kitchen.

When plain rice just won't cut it, you can try a caramelised onion pulao.

Recipe

1. In a sauce pan add some oil and throw in a cardamom, 2 to 3 cloves, a pinch of cumin seeds and 1 bay leaf.

2. Let the spices sit in the hot oil for a minute so that the flavours can infuse into the oil.

3. Now add some thinly sliced onions and let them fry on medium high heat till they are caramelised. Keep stirring throughout. Adding salt will quicken the caramelisation process.

4. Add some chopped garlic stir well and in a minute add half a teaspoon of garam masala. Stir well for 30 seconds and then add a dash of water. This will stop the cooking process and won't let the garam masala burn.

5. Now in the same pot add a cup of washed basmati rice and 2 cups of water. Let the rice cook through with a lid on.

Who said rice needs to be boring!

Straight from the farm, this is a pepper spike starting to produce little white flowers. In a few months, these flowers will produce little globular green-coloured fruits, what we all know as peppercorns.

Green, black, and white, all the different types of peppercorns come from the same plant.

And this ladies and gentlemen is our very first blend!

Presenting to you a carefully crafted Garam masala, made using over 10 different ingredients sourced mostly from farms.

No preservatives, fillers, or any other nasty stuff, we promise!

Now off to our foodie friends and chefs to give us some feedback before we lock in the final recipe and get ready for launch.

Photo shoot time....

Lots of new products are missing from the website, and it's high time I put them on.

A big thank you to from for making this happen!

It's our very first mention in a publication.

Gives me the courage to keep going!!!

The Sabor Co.'s very first employee, Mahendar.

In the last 6 weeks of being in India, we have successfully set up a manual packaging line.

Mahendar has stepped in as a jack of all trades. Quality checks, batch coding, sterilising the produce, labeling, and everything in between, he does it all!

I have trained him rigorously over the last 2 weeks with the aim of introducing retail pouches.

I'm so excited to have him onboard. Let's see what the future holds!

Pepper pepper everywhere...

We finally got our hands on some Indian cassia stcks, aka dalchini. Grown organically by a group of farmers in Meghalaya, India, led by a female farmer, who has won the 4th highest civilian award for her contributions within the agricultural sector.

Will share more about her very soon.

I would say this one sits between Vietnamese cassia and True Srilankan cinnamon in terms of flavour.

Not as sharp as the vietnameese variety but a notch above the True Srilankan cinnamon.

On this trip to India, I have been able to identify some farmers growing excellent coriander seeds.

This grade is called Double Parrot, thanks to its green colour. They taste sweet, warm, with notes of lime.

To all the lovely chefs we work with, the wait will soon be over as we should have them in Australia by August this year.

Always something new to learn when you visit farms.

What you see here are two nutmeg intact in their shells.

The colour of the shell indicates what you will find inside the shell once cracked open.

Dark brown coloured shell indicates a healthy, fully matured, healthy nutmeg seed inside, whereas light brown indicates an immature perhaps a rotten seed that disintegrates easily, even with the slightest touch of the hand.

We plan to sell nutmeg intact in their shells from now on as the shell acts as a protective layer that nature puts in place. This ensures a lesser probability of any sort of bacterial or fungal growth and preserves the oils within the seeds.

Working working working on a sunny Sunday arvo in Delhi, India.

Crunching numbers to see if it is viable to introduce smaller retail pouches at better price points.

Today was an end of a big chapter for me!

This is the little space in a big warehouse where I started executing my vision towards creating a better spice trade.

How I got here is a story in itself! In short, I was told to leave 2 other spaces in late 2022 because of the spicey smells I brought along. And then came Tom, my shipping agent, to my rescue.

He gave me a little room in his warehouse to kick off my operations, If it wasn't for him, I'm not sure where I would be.

One of the kindest and most generous people I have met, to say the least.

We will be moving warehouses next month, so it is lock stock and barrel for now.

And whilst the move happens, I shall be in India, busy setting up a packaging line.

I also plan to visit some farms since it is harvesting season. So stay tuned!

Our distributors and are all stocked up, if you need any stock, please get in touch with them.

We wish everyone a very happy Easter and thank you for all your support!

The newest member in our spice collection. Some very fine Tellicherry pepper.

Sourced from a regenerative family-owned farm in the Wayanad district of Kerala and harvested only in 2023.

Initial thoughts, these peppercorns just blew my mind away! A notch above the Idduki or Malabar peppercorns we have in our range.

Smelling a bag full of these reminds me of berries.

As you chew on this peppercorn, you get a nice mellow peppery, woody and citrusy taste. The heat then slowly builds on and on with a slight numbing effect on the tongue.

You can feel the heat for a while so a little will go a long way!

Never have I tasted pepper so good!

Hoping to have this on the website for sale shortly. Also available for all our wonderful chefs either directly or through and .

What a way to start my Frday morning!

The man with a bag full of spices goes places.

Happy Friday!

If it's the day to honour the women in our lives then here is my queen!

We've had a long ride together and she has never failed to support me through thick and thin!!!

Happy international women's day!

A sinkhole opened up last week at the industrial complex from where we operate in Rockdale.

As a result of this, we have been totally out of action since Friday last week.

We sincerely apologise for the delays in processing orders for our customers however this is something completely out of our control.

We were hoping to get back into action this morning but no news from the stakeholders thus far.

We will keep you posted as things progress.

Thank you for your support and your patience.

Knock knock, who's there?

A man with a bag full of spices. Well, not just any spices, fresh spices straight from the farms.

And that's how I made my way into Osteria di Russo & Russo about a month ago as a salesman.

The next thing I know I have an audience consisting of the head chef and the bartender.

As they make their way through the jars full of spicy goodness, their faces just light up once they open the cardamon and the cloves.

Never have they smelt spices so good, they said.

And this just made my day!

It is an honour to announce The Sabor Co.'s range is now being used in this classic Italian trattoria's kitchen to spice things up!

A big thank you to head chef Jowoon Oh.

As fresh as it gets!

The harvesting of lakadong turmeric for this year has begun in Meghalaya, India.

Have you tried our organically grown Lakadong turmeric as yet?

It contains the highest levels of curcumin that you can find in any turmeric variety in the world.

Pallets full of goodness have come our way this morning.

Can't wait to unbox the second best peppercorns in the world, a.k.a. Tellicherry pepper.

Finally the much awaited cinnamon sticks have arrived!
Stock is extremely limited and we hope to get some more in Feb/March.

Wondering which chefs end up playing with these in their kitchens.

We are over the moon!

And It's Rockpool this time! Our produce has made its way into the kitchens of this iconic Sydney venue.

A big thank you to Santiago Aristizabel, head chef at Rockpool Bar & Grill for trialling our produce and recognising the quality!

And to from for supporting us through this journey.

We finally got our hands on some Ceylon Cinnamon a.k.a true Cinnamon!

Introducing to you our second female farmer who also happens to be a GP by profession, Dr. Malini Kahandakorale. We happened to meet Dr Malini through her son Heshan, who is currently living in Sydney, importing micro lots of cinnamon from his family estate.

Dr Malini (pictured here working at the estate) is a second-generation cinnamon farmer based in Deniyaya, Sri Lanka.

She inherited the farm from her father and decided to continue the family tradition of farming while juggling her professional duties and also looking after 3 kids.

Her father Mr Kahandakorale Sirisena in his early years ran a bicycle repair shop and saved funds eventually to purchase the cinnamon estate. Over the years he also ventured into other crops including pepper, tea, coconut and rubber to improve the quality of the soil and reduce pest attacks.

The crops are grown with minimum use of fertilisers as the soil itself is quite rich in minerals. Also, pesticides are used in a restrained manner during the monsoon season only as this is when the plants are more susceptible to pest infestation.

We are so excited to add true cinnamon to our product offering. The stocks are extremely limited and we look forward to launching the product in both retail and food service packaging.

And we promise you some more pictures from the estate soon!

Shot at a private estate in the southern province of Sri Lanka.

True Ceylon Cinnamon might be a part of our offering in the coming weeks!

Stay tuned!

New year goals! Today, I spent the whole day grinding various spices in our new blender. Small but nifty!

This is some yellow mustard seeds. I was amazed at how clumpy the powder was, an indication of good-quality seeds with high oil content.

The plan is to bring to market some amazing blends in the coming months.

Will keep you guys updated as we make progress.

This is the story of two best friends. Bibin Thomas and Mahendran happen to be our newest farming families from Thekkady, Idukki district in Kerala

Thomas and Bibin have known each other since childhood, first meeting in primary school. They are both now fourth-generation farmers cultivating cardamom, pepper, cloves, and coffee at their family plantation.

In the early 1940’s Thomas’s great-grandfather, Mr. Thomas Scaria traveled to the high ranges in the Idukki district from Edathwa, a small village in the Kottayam district of Kerala, The aim was to find work at a spice plantation and settle down.

Similarly, Mahendran’s grandfather Mr. Radhakrishnan also migrated to the region from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu as a labourer to work at the tea plantations which back then were tightly controlled by the British officials in India.

Late 1940’s when the British finally exited India, the Indian government decided to allot land holdings to local families already working in the area.

This is when both these families became neighbours and friendships were formed that have lasted over 4 generations.

As fourth-generation farmers Thomas and Bibin are both well educated and like many of our other farmers, trying to directly market their produce across the world rather than depending on multiple middlemen, who often pay next to nothing.

Thomas first got in touch with us earlier in 2023, quite keen to work with us. His enthusiasm got me and we decided to give them a go.

As I write this post, their first shipment with cardamom, peppercorns, and cloves is about to hit Australian shores.

Twenty 24 it is then!

Wishing you all a very happy new year.

Can't wait to get back to work tomorrow. Lots of new things planned for the year, now to the ex*****on!

What a difference a year can make!

This time last year as I sat in the same place outside our warehouse, doing a photo shoot for our foodservice bags, I wondered.

I wondered, how will I pull this off.

With no background in food, with no connections in the market, no distributors, no retailers, nothing.

It was quite a scary feeling with 6 pallets full of spices sitting there. All that I had was put into sourcing and bringing these pallets into the country.

I did a basic shoot with my phone, a tripod and a few pallets stacked up hoping to create a simple sales deck to pitch our products to distributors.

The next few months were hard, to say the least. A roller coaster of emotions.

There was little to no interest in the products and those who liked it, did not agree on the price.

I persisted against all odds and the tables turned somewhere in April as we got our first distributor onboard.

John from just loved the quality of our produce and the way the packaging was designed to put forward the origin story of each spice.

12 months on and our range is now in 12 stores across Sydney and beyond.

Our range is also being used by top chefs in some of the most prestigious restaurants across Sydney.

Thank you to everyone who gave us a go and supported us in our startup phase!

Can't wait to see what next year brings.