About Onyx & Pearl
Slow-cured. Hand-tinned. American.
Onyx & Pearl began on a quiet bend of the Sacramento River, where a family of fourth-generation sturgeon farmers wondered whether the most refined caviar in the world could come from American water. After two decades of patient husbandry, the answer is in every tin we ship.
The water
Our sturgeon mature for seven to twelve years in clear, gravity-fed flow-through tanks drawing from the snowmelt watershed of the Sierra Nevada. We never use closed-recirculation systems. Cold, oxygen-rich water gives the roe a clean, sweet finish that defines our house style.
The cure
Each batch is salted by hand at less than 3.5% — what the Russian masters call malossol, «little salt.» Our cure-master tastes every kilo before it is tinned. Nothing is pasteurized. Nothing is rushed.
The tin
Empty 30-, 50-, 125-, 250-, 500-gram, and 1-kilo tins are filled the same morning the roe is graded. They travel from our cold room to your door inside 48 hours, in a recyclable cooler our team packs in person.
What we will not do
We do not import. We do not pasteurize. We do not blend grades. We do not ship to a freight forwarder. We do not sell to anyone we cannot reach by phone if a tin disappoints.
The people
Onyx & Pearl is small on purpose. The same six people who tend the fish also pack your order. The phone in our shipping room rings to a real person Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Pacific. We answer.