Taste of the Extraordinary: The Journey of Icelandic Lava Salt from Volcanoes to Your Table

Saltverk's black lava salt is Icelandic flaky sea salt blended with activated charcoal. It is made at a small saltworks at Reykjanes in Ísafjarðardjúp, in the Westfjords of Iceland, with heat that comes out of the ground. This is how it is made, what it tastes like and what to put it on.

What is black lava salt?

Flaky sea salt from the Westfjords, with activated charcoal mixed in. The charcoal gives the flakes their deep black colour; the name is a nod to the black lava fields that cover so much of Iceland. There is nothing else in the jar: no anti-caking agents, no additives, no iodine.

How Saltverk makes it

Salt was first made with geothermal heat at Reykjanes in the 1700s. The works then stood silent for two centuries until Saltverk rebuilt them in 2011, designing and welding much of the equipment themselves. Seawater from the fjord is heated in open pans with 93 °C water from the hot springs until flakes form on the surface. The flakes are lifted out by hand, drained and dried. No gas or oil is burned, and Saltverk says that, as far as it knows, it is the only artisanal salt made this way. Every batch is third-party tested for heavy metals, and since 2024 the whole business has been Climate Neutral Certified.

What does it taste like?

Like good flaky sea salt, with a rounder edge. The charcoal brings no flavour of its own; Saltverk says it smooths the sharpness you sometimes get from plain salt, so the flakes taste softer. You buy it mostly for the colour.

What do you put lava salt on?

Use it at the end, where it can be seen. Black flakes show best on pale food: herb butter, grilled white fish, soups, sliced fruit, dark chocolate, the rim of a cocktail glass and a finished steak. Crush the flakes between your fingers as you sprinkle. Because the flakes are large, you need less than you would of fine table salt.

Is lava salt healthy?

It is salt, so the same advice applies as to any salt: use it for flavour and finish, in moderation. The activated charcoal is there for colour and a smoother taste, and we make no health claims for it. Sea salt carries trace minerals from the seawater, but in the amounts you sprinkle on a plate they make no difference to your diet. What you do get is a salt made without burning fuel, by hand, in one of the most remote corners of Iceland.

Which Reykjanes?

Not the peninsula by Keflavík airport. Saltverk's Reykjanes is a small headland in Ísafjarðardjúp, the long fjord in the north-west of Iceland. The place is named after the steam from its hot springs, and that hot water is what makes the salt.

Where to buy lava salt

We stock the whole hand-harvested Saltverk range: Lava Salt, Arctic Thyme Sea Salt, Licorice Sea Salt, Seaweed Sea Salt, Birch Smoked Sea Salt and the plain Flaky Sea Salt. Gift sets: lava and plain together, a box of four and all six flavoured salts. Everything ships from Iceland, and US and Canadian duties are settled at checkout.