Salt Makers

Without salt, there would be no human history. Century after century, humans have battled wind, sun and sea, shaped landscapes and dug galleries to produce salt - our most precious ally. Let's head out around the world to discover magical places steeped in history and meet the people who make this ‘white gold’.

BY ANTOINE GAUVIN

And a pinch of salt...for many centuries, the gesture we make so readily today was rare and costly. Mankind's history has often been inseparable from the history of salt. Salt making was one of the foundations of the Neolithic revolution. As herding and agriculture developed, people needed a way to preserve food, and salt was the best method available. But its scarcity made it an important commodity and the salt trade was often taxed. The salt tax imposed by Philippe de Valois, King of France, in 1341, drove up the price of salt by 40%. Today, salt is second only to oil as a globally-traded commodity. Salt has left its mark on the world's languages too: the word ‘salary’ comes from the Latin word for an allowance paid to Roman soldiers to buy salt (sal in Latin). Here we discover five examples around the world that show how human ingenuity has solved a salty problem. They are all splendid places to visit and educational too.

Rock salt mines have existed since ancient times. The oldest known, dating from 1300BC, is in the pretty Austrian village of Hallstatt. Its salt is part of the same underground deposit as that of its famous neighbour, the Berchtesgaden mine in the Bavarian Alps. This salt deposit, 30m thick in places, was formed when a sea evaporated in the Triassic period, 200 million years ago. The Berchtesgaden mine started 500 years ago, helped to build Bavaria's wealth and is still worked today. The process involves injecting water 100m below the surface to flush out the rock salt. Part of it can be visited, reliving the epic journey of hundreds of generations of miners.

Seawater contains an average of 30g of salt per litre. The challenge is to increase the salt content to a concentration that allows it to crystallise. The method most commonly used around the world involves salt marshes. Before the Romans, salt workers only managed to achieve a brine that had to be evaporated by boiling in terracotta moulds, which were then broken to extract the block of salt. The Romans improved the technique to obtain salt by open-air evaporation. Their method is perfectly illustrated by the Sečovlje salt pans near Portorož in Slovenia - one of the last saltworks on the Mediterranean to use a technique that hasn't changed for 700 years. The salt crystallises on the 'petola' - a 1cm thick natural layer composed of blue-green algae, clay and gypsum, which keeps the salt from mixing with the mud at the bottom. As visitors soon discover, the 1600-acre saltworks area is also a wonderful bird sanctuary with more than 270 species. In another part of the world, on the island of Bali, the salt farmers of Kusamba may be the last practitioners of an ancient technique using the black sands of the island's southeast coast. Theirs is an exhausting job, going to and fro between the sea and the beach to pour seawater on to the black sand. After a first evaporation stage, the sand is gathered up and rinsed through big woven bamboo funnels. The filtered brine is then poured into hollowed-out half palm trunks and set to evaporate in the sun again. This remarkable process, with skills passed down from generation to generation, yields a very pure, bright white salt.

There are a few places around the world where salt crystallises naturally, ready for harvesting. You can visit two uniquely amazing places to grasp the scale of the phenomenon: the Dead Sea in the Middle East and Lake Assal in Djibouti, Africa. Inland bodies of highly saline water like these are a rare geological phenomenon, formed when an inlet of the sea gets trapped by tectonic movements. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth's surface, its shoreline lying 430m below sea level. It is also ten times saltier than the oceans, with a 32% salt content comprising no fewer than 21 mineral salts. Dead Sea salt has been harvested since ancient times and is renowned for its beneficial effects on the skin. Amid breathtaking scenery, where the crystallised salt forms strange and wonderful sculptures, you can lie back and enjoy extraordinary wellness treatments. Djibouti, a small desert country on the horn of Africa, offers another magnificent desert landscape around Lake Assal. This is the lowest point in Africa, 150m below sea level, and is thought to be the saltiest body of water in the world. Part of the lake is a dry salt plain. Working in fierce heat, people of the Afar and Issa communities hack out slabs weighing 15 to 20 kg, which they take by camel train to markets in Ethiopia and elsewhere. It is a world of extremes, immaculately white, with fabulous landscapes forged by crystal salt. Next time you order caviar on toast, you might remember that without a delicate touch of salt, caviar would be tasteless. So which is more precious, the caviar or the salt?

Indulge in luxurious therapies at the hotel’s spa that use salt from the local mine. Choose body scrubs containing fine sea salt crystals or relax with a salt stone massage. Naturally, regional salt features at Gourmet Restaurant PUR. Try it served with homemade bread as a starter.

The hotel is situated close to the ancient Piran salt pans and you can visit this beautiful place to discover how the fleur de sel (flower of salt) is still produced using age-old methods. You’ll find lots of references to salt throughout the hotel. At Rose Spa you can enjoy soothing seawater in the indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Inspired by Piran salt, Restaurant Fleur de Sel's decor is light and white. Look out too for small crystals embedded into the bar to represent the salt flower.

The hotel supports the once-struggling Muntigunung community by arranging for villager guides to take KEMPINSKI DISCOVERY members trekking. Make sure you see the community’s high-quality handcrafted goods, including hand harvested sea salt. The hotel also organises excursions to the eastern beach to meet the salt makers.

Rich in minerals, Dead Sea salt is central to the hotel’s spa treatments. The scrubs, wraps and facials will stimulate and detoxify your skin, then after your treatment, try the sensation of floating in the spa’s Dead Sea pool, or head to the sea itself for an experience like no other.

Ask the hotel to arrange for you to visit Lake Assal, the world’s largest salt reserve, from which millions of tonnes are extracted each year. Once you’ve visited the reserve, sample the taste at Bankouale - the hotel’s fish restaurant on the beach, which uses the salt in its ‘salt crust catch of the day’ dishes.