Kabuli Chana

Details

Kabuli chana grown around Latur and Jalgaon in Maharashtra, screened to a single large calibre of 12 mm and above, which is the grade that swells properly and holds its shape in a chhole instead of breaking up. Two things get done to kabuli chana before it reaches a shop. It is bleached, usually with a sulphite or a soda wash, because a bag of flat uniform cream beans sells and a naturally mottled one does not. And the calibre is faked: the small 8 and 9 mm grades are packed and sold as large, which is a straight price substitution nobody can check through an opaque bag. Old stock rides along with both, because a bleached bean gives away nothing about its age.

• No bleaching, no sulphite wash and no soda treatment, residue tested
• Single calibre, 12 mm and above, screened per lot
• Current crop, crop year printed on every pack
• No polish, wax or added colour
• Destoned and gravity separated, foreign matter under 0.2 percent
• A natural cream beige with some mottling, not the flat white of a bleached bean
• Soak eight hours and it holds its shape rather than collapsing, with no soda needed