Noma Projects | Particl Company Profile

Join Carolyne and Chef Pablo Soto as they taste the first drop of Noma Kaffe. Watch the full video on our website! Stay tuned for the next one—sign up for our newsletter to be the first to receive updates on Noma Kaffe.

The simple math of heat: pain + pleasure = capsaicin ⁠ Why do we seek out heat, and why does the plant kingdom keeps providing it in ample supply? As Dr. Arielle Johnson (@arielle_johnson) explains, it’s actually all a big mistake, a cosmic joke and happy accident (at least for us humans). ⁠ ⁠ Imagine you’re a pepper plant in the genus Capsicum that is looking, as all plants do, for a way to defend yourself that doesn’t require running away (since you are, quite literally, rooted in place). If you were a cactus, you’d evolve to develop physical spikes. If you were poison ivy, you’d figure out how to make resin that damages the skin. If you’re a chile, you have capsaicin.⁠ ⁠ When chiles created a molecule called capsaicin, that heat only made us want them more. Call it a pepper’s fatal flaw: you go through all that effort to thwart those who want to eat you, only for that very defense to become a giddy, pleasurable, even addictive encouragement to the opposite. ⁠

We’re currently making blackberry tea at @nomaprojects 🍃 Last week, we handpicked fresh blackberry leaves while they were still bright green and tender. After a thorough rinse, we lightly steamed them to soften the leaves, then gently bruised them to prepare for fermentation. Over the weekend, they fermented in a mix of water, sugar, and a selected strain of yeast. Once the fermentation was complete, we strained the liquid and dried the leaves. The result is tea that tastes like stone fruit with a unique mouthfeel! The blackberry tea is then being used as a part of the tea programme over at @nomacph 🙌

Join us for a day of foraging at @nomacph with @eoghancoady and @telenide_ . From forest to sea, we uncovered some wild and tasty treasures along the way! 🌱 1) Wood sorrel you will find in open, shaded areas between trees where sunlight is limited. It’s easy to spot by its clover-shaped leaves. The taste is sour like tart apple. 2) Wood sorrel flowers are small and delicate, usually white or pale pink with fine purple veins. You’ll often see them blooming low to the ground, right alongside the leaves. They’re edible too. Mild in flavor and great eaten fresh. 3) Ramson, also known as wild garlic, is easy to recognize by its strong garlic scent. It typically grows in dense colonies in the shady parts of deciduous forests. Look for smooth, oval green leaves growing in clusters. These are best harvested before flowering for the best flavor. 4) Ground elder grows in nutrient-rich, lightly shaded areas and spreads quickly. Spot it by its serrated, clover-like leaves that sit close together. Pick it young - before the leaves fully unfold - when they’re smooth, shiny, and bright green. The taste is mild and herby, like a mix of parsley, celery, and a hint of carrot. 5) Sea sandwort is a beach herb that grows in low, dense clumps across sandy shores. From the water’s edge up to the dunes. It has a small, triangular, almost Christmas tree-like appearance. Crisp and succulent, it offers a fresh cucumber-like taste with a salty bite. What will you find next time you head out? 🔍

What are these strange little plants? We often imagine that the coffee bean is a seed. In reality this is a half truth - germination reveals the bean for what it really is. After it releases its roots, the bean is slowly lifted from the earth, as a tender young stem grows to support it. At this stage the young plants appear as if a church congregation. Facing the same direction, they stand to attention, eagerly worshipping the sun. When they are ready, each bean unfurls to form the first two leaves of a coffee tree. A strange thought, that when we are roasting these little beans, we are in fact roasting the baby leaves of the coffee tree. It all begins to make sense when we cup under-roasted coffee. These coffees taste “green” - This green flavor comes from the chlorogenic acid, (or chlorophyll) present in the bean- the compound that gives leaves its green color.

When we talk about what is “extraordinary” in a cup of coffee, we are referring to that which is “more than ordinary,” “more than” our understanding. In other words: there is something profound about a cup of coffee that can make you think. The first time we tasted Garnica from Tenejapa, we were forced to confront our own biases about Mexican coffee. The potential of what we had (only a moment before!) underestimated, was suddenly revealed to us at the bottom of an espresso cup. Citric acidity, juicy texture and berry-like sweetness - all seemingly going against type. We served that Garnica Espresso in the Summer of 2018. Whilst it fell off the map in the years since, the memory of it stayed with us. So much so that on any cupping table, we can immediately recognise it - It greets us as does an old friend.

Serving Noma Kaffe, it’s easier when you work with people like Inez Vazquez (@inezvazque). We’re proud of the passionate community we’re building, and we invite you to join our waitlist to taste the love and commitment behind this project.

Mushroom Garum Cured Egg Yolk Mayonnaise 🥚 Whether it’s featured in a dish in the dining room or playing the starring role in a bowl of rice at staff meal, a cured egg yolk is always somewhere to be found at noma. Find the full recipe on our site, and let us know how you like it!

Bell Pepper Tamari at Noma 🌶️ - Tamari is an umami-rich, savoury liquid that forms on top of a fermenting miso. Technically, it is a by-product of the fermentation process and appears as a viscous juice packed with flavour. To prepare our bell pepper tamari, puree 2 part of raw bell peppers and combine it with 1 parts of Yellow Peaso - our version of miso. Let the mixture age at 60 °C for 6 days in an airtight vessel. Freeze the whole mixture, strain it through a cheesecloth at room temperature and reduce the harvested liquid to a syrup. At this point, the tamari should be dark in colour and present deep, caramelised flavour notes. To finalize it, take some new fresh bell peppers, juice them and season the tamari to taste or, until you can taste the sweetness of fresh peppers once again. If this feels like too much to tackle on your own, why not try our Pepper Tamari instead? It’s a rich, delicately aromatic reduction accented with ground Madagascar pepper. Link in bio to try the Pepper Tamari.

We’re popping up again—this time for the Easter holidays! 🐣🌿 From April 17–21, the noma greenhouse will open its doors for a special Noma Projects Easter Pop-up. Come by to explore and taste your way through our full pantry of products. Whether you’re looking to bring home some of your favorite Noma flavors or stock your kitchen for the Easter season, we’d love to see you. We’ll be offering tastings and our full range of products for purchase—perfect for spring cooking and festive meals. 📍 noma greenhouse, Refshalevej 96 🕚 Opening hours: 11.00–16.00 daily 📅 Thursday, April 17 – Monday, April 21 Stop in and say hi—we’d love to welcome you!

Setting the Table for Microbes There’s a thin line between rot and fermentation, and that line might best be understood as an actual line, like the kind you’d find outside a nightclub. Rot is a club where everyone gets in: bacteria and fungi, safe or unsafe, flavor-enhancing or destructive. When you ferment something, you’re taking on the role of a bouncer, keeping out unwanted microbes and letting in the ones that are going to make the party pop. You have several tools at your disposal in trying to encourage certain microbes or deter others. Some organisms are more tolerant of acidity than others, likewise with oxygen, heat, and salinity. If you’re familiar with what your preferred microbe needs to function, you can wield these factors to your benefit. Each chapter in this book will go into great detail about the conditions you need to create successful fermentation, but for starters, here’s an overview of the players that will be working for us. Excerpt from The Noma Guide to Fermentation by René Redzepi and David Zilber

Kelp salt at noma - In a project to try to harvest the natural salt and glutamine found in kombu, a hot dashi was drawn from the kelp, and the liquid was set to dehydrate slowly in a low oven; an effort to mimic the harvesting techniques used in salt flats around the world. Upon the success of that experiment, kelp salt quickly made its way to the noma menu, becoming a hugely important ingredient and staple flavor of the restaurant to this day. This would all change in 2015, after the test kitchen visited Japan on an extensive research trip prior to the Tokyo pop-up. Scouring the country for ingredients and inspiration, a visit to a seaweed provider would cause a seismic shift in not just our kelp salt production, but in how noma would use dashi from that point forward. Here, the qualities of the seaweed were sampled as a cold-brewed dashi. Cold brewing coaxed more flavor out of the kelp, and without risk the of heat corrupting any nuanced flavor. It also afforded a more consistent product; with hot-brewing, cook time was a variable, but with a cold-infused, that variable was eliminated. Noma began producing cold-infused dashi after that discovery, and the improvement of the dashi resulted in the improvement of the kelp salt. Today we use kelp salt not just as a finishing augmentation, but also to add a layer of flavor to a simple butter sauce or a component of a seasoning paste or fudge. While it maintains a crystalline state, once crushed or mashed, the salt forms a sandy paste, lending it a broad spectrum of versatility in the home kitchen. .. Have you explored the flavor of kelp salt before? 🙌