Black Mustard Oil, Cold-Pressed

Black mustard seeds sourced from Maharashtra and Karnataka, cold-pressed with no blending and no refining. The pungency is the product working as intended — that sharp catch at the back of the throat is allyl isothiocyanate, released when mustard seed is crushed, and refined mustard oil has had it stripped out along with most of what made the oil worth pressing. The sediment that settles at the bottom of the bottle is the same story: it is what unrefined looks like, not a fault. Most cooking oil in India is hexane solvent-extracted then refined, bleached and deodorised; cold-pressing yields less and costs more, which is the whole reason for the price gap. Mustard oil also has one of the better fatty-acid profiles among Indian cooking oils, high in monounsaturates with a favourable omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. Carries a Detox Project glyphosate-free certificate. Traditionally heated to smoking point before cooking to mellow the raw bite.