Top 10 Best Selling Ingredients of 2024 🏆
Here's an exclusive insight into our ten most popular ingredients of the year!
10. Tonquin / Tonka Beans 
Tonquin Beans (or Tonka Beans) have a distinctively rich yet nutty flavour with an intensely aromatic scent that’s reminiscent of sweet spices and vanilla!
Pop the dried beans into sachets and potpourri blends to give off a new mown hay/vanilla-like aroma tinged with cinnamon, almond and cloves. Feeling fancy? Create authentic French cuisine with these versatile beans in the same way you’d use vanilla. Use an extract from the seeds to scent homemade soaps, shampoos, and perfumes.
9. Kaffir Lime Leaves 
Once you’ve mastered Bay Leaves it’s time to reach for the Kaffir Lime Leaves… With their strong citrus flavour and sour yet floral undertones, these leaves are often described as a classic combo of lime, lemon, and mandarin without the fuss!
Kaffir Lime Leaves can usually be found in Thai and South East Asian Cuisine but like bay leaves, are often not eaten when added to a dish. Pop into soups, curries, and noodle dishes for extra authentic flavour. Fun Fact: Tearing the leaves helps to release some of the fragrant flavours.
8. Chamomile Flowers (German) 
These daisy-like flowers have been used as a traditional medicine for thousands of years to settle the stomach, but we just love their gentle notes of apple and mellow, honey-like sweetness!
Ditch the tea bags and use our Chamomile Flowers as a relaxing loose-leaf herbal tea. You may think these flowers are a one trick pony, but you’d be oh so wrong… Did you know herbal tea can be used to make mouth-watering rice, honey panna cotta and tea-poached pears?!
7. Coarse Cut Orange Peel 
Course Cut Orange Peel brings a sharp, tangy quality to food, drink and cosmetic recipes that call for charismatic fruity flavours and fragrance! Save time peeling the popular citrus fruit and get instant orange flavour with the click of a button…
Add dried orange peel to your summer barbecue as kindling and the aroma from the peel will lend its fragrance to whatever you’ve got grilling! Mix Course Cut Orange Peel into potpourri blends and bath bombs or pop into your salt, pepper, or sugar grinder for added fruity flavour. It’s time to brew your own orange-flavoured tea or festive mulled wine!
6. Allspice Berries 
Combine the flavours of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and pepper and that’s essentially what our Allspice Berries tastes like (but with a lot less fuss!)
The secret ingredient in Caribbean jerk seasoning? You guessed it! Grind down and use in both sweet and savoury dishes such as stuffing, nut roasts, stews, casseroles, sausages, sauces, jams, and pickles or add to bread, cakes, and biscuits. Feeling festive? Add Allspice Berries to mulled wine and spiced cordials (just don’t forget to fish them out before serving!)
5. Orris Root Powder 
You may know Orris Root for its versatile, floral scent that’s quite iconic in the fragrance industry or maybe you’re familiar with its earthy yet sweet aroma?
Use this popular powder as a fixative for potpourri, pomanders and spice wreaths! Orris Root Powder helps to keep the colour and fragrance longer and is often mixed with cinnamon powder or essential oils.
4. Coriander Seeds
We’re so excited to introduce you to our versatile Coriander Seeds! You’ll fall in love with their mild sweet taste and citrusy flavours that work well in both sweet AND savoury recipes.
Add to curries, soups, stews, and tagines, use to compliment pork, chicken and vegetables, crush and sprinkle over sweet potatoes prior to roasting and sprinkle into rice and grain dishes such as couscous. Coriander can also be added to bread, puddings, biscuits, cakes, and dumpling recipes. Try mixing coriander seeds, allspice berries and peppercorns and pop into your peppermill for an aromatic seasoning with a difference. These popular seeds can also be used to flavour oils such as walnut oil. All you have to do is lightly crush the seed and add to the oil along with thinly pared orange rind and a single cinnamon stick. Our personal favourite way to use our Coriander seeds is in dressings and marinades… YUM!
3. Crushed Cassia 
When crushed, it can be hard to distinguish the difference between Cassia and Cinnamon, but the difference is in the colour and scent! Cassia is more reddish brown in colour and has a coarser texture, with a stronger, yet more bitter flavour. Now you know the difference, it’s time to get creative in the kitchen…
Sprinkle our popular Crushed Cassia into bread, biscuit, cake, and muffin recipes, or use to create your own curry powder blend at home. Stir into soups, stews and tagines, season chicken, lamb and beef or blend into butter and make spicy cinnamon toast. (Try spreading cassia butter onto teacakes and crumpets… YUM!) Try something new by adding cassia to scented sachets and potpourri mixes for a warming scent that’ll fill your home.
2. Cut Angelica Root 
These long, twisted, thick and fleshy rootlets have a spicy, slightly bitter taste.
Did you know that Angelic Root is prized for its aromatic properties which is why its oh so popular in the perfumery industry?! (And incense too…) It’s also one of the ingredients used to create several French liquors including absinthe but most importantly it’s gin o’clock! That’s right, Angelica Root can be used as a substitute for juniper berries when making gin! If you’re not feeling boozy, pop into potpourri blends as a fixative.
1. Juniper Berries 
Where do we start with Juniper Berries? They're one of our most popular ingredients and it could very well have something to do with the fact that these small berries make one of the most popular spirits in the world! It's always gin o'clock when Juniper Berries are involved… These favoured berries have a tart, sharp taste, and a piney flavour with a hint of citrus.
An ideal ingredient to add to rich gamey dishes containing venison, duck, and pheasant. They also work well with pork and lamb and are excellent when added to dishes such as potato gratin, sauerkraut, and pickles. The berries can also be used to make sweet syrups to poach fruit in or to use as a base for a fruit salad. To get the best results, lightly crush juniper berries before adding to a dish to help release their flavour.
