How to read an Al Tahoor pack

Most of the back of a spice packet is there because the law requires it, and most people never read a word of it. Which is a pity, because two of those lines tell you more about what you have bought than the entire front.

The packing date

This is the one to look at first.

It is the week the spice was ground and sealed. Not a date worked backwards from an expiry, not the date a carton left a warehouse — the week it was actually made.

We print it because ground spice is a perishable thing. Volatile oils, which are the aroma, evaporate. Colour pigments break down under light. None of that makes a spice unsafe; it makes it duller, and dullness is what you are trying to avoid by buying good spice in the first place.

Our rough guide: at its best within about six months of the packing date, entirely fine well beyond that. Ground chilli and ground coriander fade fastest. Turmeric holds its colour longest.

If you are standing in a shop with two packs and one was ground two months ago, take that one. If neither pack will tell you, that is also information.

The batch number

A short code identifying the specific run the pack came from.

For you it is mostly insurance. If a pack is ever wrong — off smell, a seal that failed, anything — quoting the batch number lets us find exactly which grinding it came from, what went into it, and every other pack made that day.

That is the entire point of batching, and it is the difference between "we will send you another one" and "we know what happened."

The FSSAI licence number

A fourteen-digit number identifying us as a licensed food business under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.

You can look it up. It should name the licence holder and the address of the premises the food is made in — and the address should be the one on the pack. A licence number that resolves to a trading company in another state, on a pack claiming to be made in Kashmir, is worth a second thought.

Net weight

The weight of the spice, not of the pack. Ground spice settles hard in transit, so a 100 g pack often looks half empty when you open it. Weigh it if you like; it will be 100 g.

The ingredients list

For a single spice this should be one word. Our chilli powder says: Kashmiri red chilli. That is the whole list.

For a blend it will be several words, in descending order of quantity, which is the interesting part — it tells you what the blend is mostly made of. A meat masala whose first ingredient is coriander is a coriander-forward blend, whatever the picture on the front suggests.

What you should not see on either: added colour, anti-caking agent, artificial flavour, or an unexplained "spices" that could be anything at all.

The seal

Vacuum sealed, and it should be tight against the powder when it reaches you. A pack that arrives loose and puffy has lost its seal somewhere on the road — tell us, and we will replace it.

Once opened, the seal is finished. Move the spice into an airtight jar, keep it out of the sun and away from the stove, and it will hold on to what it has for a good deal longer.

The full method behind all of this is on the purity page.