This Is The Most Expensive Caviar In The World
Most people know that caviar is a luxury item, easily one of the most expensive foods in the world. Although there are many variations such as seaweed caviar, eggplant caviar, or salmon eggs, true caviar is salt-cured eggs from the sturgeon family of fish (via The Manual).
Caviar is so sought after that some of the species of sturgeon which produce it are critically endangered. There are efforts in a number of countries around the world including Israel and China to farm caviar, but the demand continues to outweigh the supply (via NPR). It's easy to find caviar that retails for anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per kilo (via The Wall Street Journal).
But as with most luxury foods, there is the competition to be the best of the best and this is where a beluga caviar called Almas comes in.
The diamond of expensive caviar
Caviar from the beluga sturgeon is the most sought after of all the sturgeon species, and part of the reason is that it takes the fish up to 25 years to mature and begin to produce eggs. A bigger egg is preferred when it comes to caviar and the roe produced by beluga sturgeon is significantly larger than other types (via TasteAtlas).
The most expensive caviar in the world is called Almas, which is an Iranian brand that retails regularly for $34,500 per kilogram (2.2 pounds). Not only is Almas caviar the most expensive caviar in the world, it's also the most expensive food on the planet as well. Unlike other types of caviar which are grey, brown, or black, Almas is a golden, butter yellow color because it comes exclusively from an albino fish aged 60 to 100 years old (via The Guinness Book of World Records). In Russian, "Almas" means diamond and this exclusive caviar is sold in a tin that is coated in 24-karat gold. Azure Azure reports that for all that cash, you can expect your caviar to taste rich (of course), intensely nutty, and oh-so-creamy, thanks to what they say is a very delicate salting process.