A pond, a paddlewheel, and a deadline that runs until sundown.
Nothing here is complicated. It is just unforgiving about time. This is the whole sequence, in order, with the hours it actually takes.
Day 0
Inoculum
A batch starts from our own maintained culture, not from a bag of someone else's biomass. Small volume first, stepped up as it thickens.
TODO: strain name / origin — confirm with Ushara
TODO: photo — starter flasks
Art dir.Glass flasks on a bench, backlit so the culture glows green. Shallow depth of field. Lab, not studio. Weeks
Cultivation
Shallow open ponds under Bhimavaram sun. Paddlewheels keep the water moving so every filament gets its turn at the light. The water is deliberately alkaline — spirulina thrives there and almost nothing else does, which is how an open pond stays clean without chemistry.
pH held high; water, salinity and alkalinity logged. TODO: pond count, pond area
TODO: photo — pond at midday
Art dir.Wide, low angle from the bund. Paddlewheel mid-stroke, sun raking across the green surface. Shot at 11am, hard light — do not soften it. Morning
Harvest
Early, while it is cool. The culture is drawn off and passed through fine screens; the biomass stays, the water goes back. We take only what the pond can regrow, then leave it to recover.
TODO: harvest cadence — how many times a week? · TODO: screen mesh, microns
Same morning
Wash & press
Rinsed with clean water to strip the growth medium, then pressed until what is left is a dense, dark paste. This is the point at which the batch is worth something and has about a day to prove it.
Within hours
The fork
Half the paste goes cold and stays alive. Half of it goes to the dryer and stops. Everything about the two product lines follows from this one decision, taken before lunch.
05a — stays alive
Chilled — live line
Same day
Packed cold, undried, and dispatched. Nothing is heated, so nothing is lost. It arrives at the hatchery with its pigment and its life intact — and a short clock.
05b — stops
Dried — dry line
Same day, low heat
Dried at low temperature and quickly. Heat is what turns forest green into grey. Then milled to powder, broken to flakes, or pressed to tablets, and sealed against light and air.
Every batch
Quality control
Samples go to Ushara Aqua Labs — our own water-testing laboratory, in-house, on the same site. Nothing leaves on a promise. A retained sample stays behind against the batch code on your pack.
TODO: exact test panel — see /quality
Then it starts again. A pond that has been harvested is a pond that is regrowing — the coil closes and the whole thing runs back to 02.
Tell us what you need.
What you are feeding, or what you are formulating. We will tell you honestly which line fits — and if neither does, we will say that too.
What happens next
- 01
You send it
The form, WhatsApp, or a phone call. Whichever is least effort for you.
- 02
A person replies
Within TODO: response time — e.g. one working day. Not an autoresponder.
- 03
We quote, and sample
Price depends on volume and distance, so it is quoted per enquiry. TODO: sample policy