Morning Masala

Bada Jagannath is a quiet enough place most mornings until we get things moving at the shop. We are right by the Dharam Kanta in Hariharpur, which is a good landmark if you’re trying to find us. Morning Masala started because we wanted to do something local and useful for the neighborhood. The air around here usually smells like turmeric or chili, depending on what we are grinding that day. It gets in your clothes and your hair, but you stop noticing it after an hour or two. We have a few machines that make a fair bit of noise, so it’s hard to hear the phone sometimes. The floor is usually covered in a fine dust of spices, no matter how much we sweep it. We aren't trying to be some giant brand you see on TV; we just want the folks in Hariharpur and the nearby villages to have something decent for their cooking. We talk to the farmers who bring in the raw stuff and we see the same faces every week. It’s a steady rhythm of work. Some days are harder than others, especially when the humidity gets high and the powders clump up, but we just deal with it as it comes. We don't have any fancy marketing people telling us what to do. We just look at the quality of the seeds and the pods and go from there.