Photos by Anne Stokes
or thousands of years, the Silk Road was the conduit through which life flowed throughout the known world. The network of trading routes spanned nearly 5,000 miles across Asia, Europe, and Africa, connecting ancient civilizations and allowing cultural exchanges to flourish among the Chinese, Greek, Roman, Indian, and Persian empires. And it’s this historical nexus that gave rise to Roseville businessman Payam Fardanesh’s wildly popular line of organic sodas. Formulated after his Iranian grandmother’s sekanjabin recipe, a sweet drink made with mint and vinegar, the flavors of Fardanesh’s beverages follow the Silk Road itself: Ginger mint for how the Greeks enjoyed it, pomegranate mint for its route through India, and cucumber mint for
how Fardanesh remembers it as a young boy in Tehran. “There were a lot of off-shoots of the Silk Road, (one of which) went through Tabriz, which is where my grandmother is from, and that’s where I got the name,” explains Fardanesh. “I thought of carbonating it and bringing it to market, and that’s basically what I did.” In addition to adding bubbles, Fardanesh also lowered sugar content of the traditionally syrupy sweet beverage. The product is unique in that it is a certified organic and preservative-free soda. “Each of the bottles has just six or seven ingredients, and they’re all organic,” Fardanesh explains. “Ninety-five percent of the content has to be organic for it to classify