Salts Worldwide

Himalayan pink salt is a kind of salt used in gourmets. The name is a little misleading because this salt does not come from the sea, and this especially does not come from the Himalayan mountains. Still, it is not a misnomer since it is sea salt. It solely refers to Pakistani rock salt. The salt, which used to be a sea salt for about hundreds of millions of years that had passed.

This salt is very tasty, and the color of it is pink. A lot of people are claiming that Himalayan pink salt has ‘curing’ properties. It naturally has a pink color because of the 5% iron oxide present in the salt. It may be known best as pink salt, but it sometimes has an off-white color or sometimes it is even transparent. It just depends on other minerals which can be found in that particular sediment.

It is such a pretty salt having a pink color. Aside from it is really beautiful to look at, this salt is also versatile. This salt is used in gourmet shows off that it is very popular as cooking salt. This salt gives a bit of floral flavor and a crunch.

Where Does Himalayan Pink Salt Come From - Pink color salt

Himalayan Pink salt is originally from Pakistan only. To be specific, it comes from Khewra salt mine located at Jhelum District, Punjab. The name does not necessarily connect to where it came from because this is located at the nearby Salt Range foothills. This Salt Range extends across the whole province of Punjab. The province covers about 300 kilometers of land. There are a variety of salt mines in this place, but Khewra is the only salt mines that produce true Himalayan salts. Khewra is claimed as the biggest salt mine there is in Pakistan. Also, they are leveled as the second largest in the whole world. That is the reason why it is being considered one of the major tourist destinations in Pakistan. They deserve that title since they attract people ranging up to quarter a million in each year. Every year people visit the salt mine constantly. Despite that, the salt mine still manages to produce a large amount of Himalayan salt yearly. In the present day, the Khewra site is solely a modern mining operation. 

Himalayan salt was discovered around the year of 326 BC, which was for over 800 million years ago. Alexander the Great was considered the one who discovered the Himalayan salt. However, Alexander would not have discovered it without his horses. The horses are the ones who found the salt. They are licking the stones in the area. That is why the soldiers tried it for themselves; the discovery was shared.

Since the time it was discovered, it gives a great flavor and has a healing effect. Still, they didn’t have a large scale of mining the salt, not until the 16th century. It was when the Mughal Empire and also the Sikhs were using the salt for food and commerce. It is considered a valuable item which they transport as far as Central Asia through a yak. However, the sea salt was not fully exploited because of the narrow tunnels and the lack of water inside, which makes the mining so dangerous. Mining’s modern history begun the year 1872. It was the time where the British have taken over the Khewra salt mines. They find the production very inefficient with its old-school methods. Since then, they undertook an overhaul of the mine and they had built warehouses completely. As an addition, they also had widened the roads, the tunnels being expanded, and the excavation of the salt is mechanized.

Where Does Himalayan Pink Salt Come From - Khewra sites

At present, the Khewra site is a whole new modern operation in mining. It now covers nineteen stories fully, and eleven are completely underground. Miners are using a room-and-pillar method in mining to reduce their needs for outside supports. It is a method where miners cut out half of the salt, and then they leave the rest there to serve as a pillar so that there will be support many tons of the materials overhead, making the inside look like a ponderous pinkish maze of salt. The rail cars are still being used together with the tiny 2-foot wide track which the British laid way back in the 19th century up until now even though the mining already has newer techniques.

Khewra is now one of the most productive mining sites in the world. They produce about 400,000 tons of Himalayan salt every year. That is almost half of the total annual salt production of Pakistan. It might already be huge still, and it is not close enough to break the potential of the deposits. It is believed that this mine could still sustain a huge level of production for the next 350 years without having any problem at all.

Himalayan Salt

Pink Himalayan Salt

The ingredients that make Pink Himalayan Salt a favorite among chefs in the culinary world also make it a replenishing bath salt!

Where Does Himalayan Pink Salt Come From? 1

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