“The idea for Purespice came to me in a restaurant in Bangkok: I ordered a chicken curry and was amazed by the intensity and taste. So I asked the chef for his recipe and he told me that he doesn’t cook his dishes with conventional spices , but with liquid extracts made from spices. When my circle of acquaintances and friends excited me about this idea, I set about developing Purespice together with Michael and later Janik,” says Holger Schönenberg, explaining the history of the start-up .
But how exactly do you get the flavor from vegan ingredients and bundle them in a few drops of oil? In fact, the founders of the start-up Purespice – Janik Prasuhn, Holger Schönenberg and Michael Pelster – use a special steam process: taste, nutrients and aromas are gently extracted from the spices and bound with tasteless coconut oil. Without flavor enhancers or artificial flavors. The range now includes seven different varieties (each with 1000 drops per bottle), which can be purchased as a set or individually:
The liquid spices can therefore not only be used for cooking, but for baking or refining desserts, dressings and sauces. But does it taste good? The star tried the vegan spice extracts.
“In fact, using the spice extracts in liquid form is much easier and easier to dose,” explains Janik. All you have to do is press the rubber suction cup of the bottle to fill the corresponding pipette with the desired spice extract – in our case it was the two varieties “garlic” and “Mexican style”. The drops are then added sparingly to the food and stirred until the desired intensity of spices has been reached. After all, everyone seasons with real ingredients sometimes more and sometimes less. The question arises: how do the extracts from Purespice taste and are they comparable to real spices?
To find out how intense the liquid extracts taste, our tester prepared a Chili sin Carne. In addition to classic ingredients such as vegetarian minced meat, corn, kidney beans and tomatoes, the two varieties “Mexican style” and “garlic” were used. Even before the drops were allowed to be used, the liquid spices were sniffed: As it quickly turned out, the oils spread very intense aromas, which is due to the high concentration of spices – for this reason the packaging also recommends, only use five drops per dish. Said and done. After some salt and pepper was added to the chili and the contents were boiled down for 30 minutes, a taste test followed. And it was very positive: The tester was able to perceive many different spices (above all, of course, the garlic, which was contained in both varieties) and after trying it several times did not have the feeling that the chili was lacking in taste or spice. On the contrary: the dish had a full-bodied and fresh aroma that was convincing across the board. In short: the chili tasted delicious.
And how do the liquid spices go down with the judges? The founding trio hopes for a deal for 150,000 euros and is willing to cede 20 percent of the company shares. You can see whether Purespice survives the taste test tonight in the Christmas special from “Die Höhle der Löwen” at 8:15 p.m. on VOX.
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