Blue Spirulina Phycocyanin

Closer in color to stained glass than to anything else in the pantry, this powder is an almost unnatural blue. Where whole spirulina tastes distinctly of the pond it grew in, this is mild, faintly sweet, and easy to miss on the tongue — whisked into warm milk it blooms into a bright, uniform cerulean. Spirulina itself has fed people for centuries, skimmed from the surface of alkaline lakes by the Aztec around Lake Texcoco and by communities near Lake Chad, then dried into cakes and eaten as a matter of course. What's extracted here is only the pigment-protein locked inside the algae, phycocyanin, valued today chiefly for its antioxidant activity and, just as honestly, for its color. The phycocyanin is drawn out with water alone, no solvents, then filtered clear of the algae's cell matter — which is why none of spirulina's usual chlorophyll flavor or smell survives into the finished powder. Ours is grown in closed freshwater tanks under controlled light rather than open ponds, a method chosen to keep the biomass consistent and free of the contaminants open water can introduce. A quarter teaspoon whisked into warm milk, batter, or frosting is enough to turn it a startling blue; add anything acidic, like lemon, and the color drifts toward green, so keep it to neutral or alkaline mixes. More pigment than supplement, and unapologetic about it.