‘Sugar is brown!’: there’s more to the sweet stuff than its pure white version

Sugar’s texture and taste can be as individualistic as coffee beans or wine grapes grown in specific regions, but most of us don’t know that

One night, I was preparing steak for dinner and mistakenly reached for the wrong white granulated substance. Instead of salting my steak to create a brown crust by searing, I created a brown crust with notes of caramel.

Ethan Frisch, co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, an artisanal spice company that works with small producers worldwide, laughed wryly when he heard this story over Zoom. “This is the first time in history anyone could make that mistake. Refined, white-bleached sugar is a very modern development in the centuries-old sugar industry. Sugar is brown! It’s only white when you do a lot of work to remove the brownness.”