Foreign Correspondence: Rural Island Off Coast Of Wales Is Worth Its Sea Salt

What's it like to live in a far-off place most of us see only on a vacation? Foreign Correspondence is an interview with someone who lives in a spot you may want to visit.

Alison Lea-Wilson, 52, is co-owner of Anglesey Sea Salt Co. It makes Halen Mon Sea Salt (www.halenmon.com), in Anglesey, an island off the northwest coast of Wales. Originally from England, she has lived on Anglesey for 30 years.

Q: How about a brief description of your island?

A. It's joined to the mainland by two bridges — great feats of engineering in the 19th century. The island has variously been occupied by different invaders, including Vikings who stole women and children. There's still a genetic pool of Welsh genes in Scandinavia traced to that.

There was a Roman occupation, too: They were the first recorded people to make salt here.

Anglesey now has 85,000 inhabitants. It's very rural — a couple towns but no cities. Most people work for the public sector or are farmers. There's lots of agriculture.

In Welsh, Anglesey is called Mam Cymru — "Mother of Wales" — because it produced all the grain and bread for the rest of Wales. There are many windmills here for flour grinding. It's very fertile and has clean seas with lots of shellfish. Where we make salt is also one of the largest mussel beds in Europe. Most mussels are exported straight to Brussels (Belgium). We have a reputation for them, and for scallops as well.

Q: How does one farm salt?

A. We call it "harvesting" rather than "farming." We have a license to draw sea water. To get that, you have to apply and pay the queen's bank every year for the privilege of taking the water: She owns all the shore around Great Britain.

Our pipe goes out into the strip of water off Anglesey called the Menia Strait. We take the equivalent of a milk tanker a day.

First it goes through a sand bank and a mussel bed. Mussels are filter feeders, so the seawater is cleaned of organisms. Then it goes through carbon filters — like charcoal — and then into our salt plant, where the water is concentrated.

Brine flows into big crystallization tanks that look like, I suppose, big tables with baths about 6 inches deep. We have gas lamps suspended above these tanks to heat the water. When a certain level of salinity is reached, crystals begin to form on the surface. As the crystals get heavier and larger, they fall to the bottom of the tank. Every morning, the harvesters come in and scoop out the crystals, which are then left to drain in piles.

We dry the crystals in ovens, then pack the salt by hand.

Q: Who does this: Locals? Guest workers?

A. Mostly indigenous Welsh. We're the biggest employer in our village of Brynsiencyn (Bryn-SHANK-in). It's a skilled job and takes a person about six months to learn how.

Q: Does the finished sea salt differ from ordinary salt? Is it colored?

A. The structure is different. For example, our salt doesn't melt when put on hot food. Other sea salts will sort of turn into a puddle of brine. Ours will give you a good crunch.

It's extremely white; it sparkles, in fact. People have said we must bleach it, but we don't.

Q: Where is it available?

A. Pretty much all around the world. We sell it in 21 countries; I just came back from Russia two days ago.

It's sold in a carton tube. And we do different flavors, as well. We do an oak-smoked salt, where it's smoked in a kiln, like you'd do a salmon. Our most famous customer is Fran's Chocolates in Seattle. The owner puts a sprinkle on top of her milk chocolate caramels — which are President Obama's favorite sweet.

This story was originally published April 19, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Foreign Correspondence: Rural Island Off Coast Of Wales Is Worth Its Sea Salt ."