A dairy country respected for generations, where the ground gives grass rather than crop and the herds are kept for milk alone.

Regular rain and mild air make grass that grows deep and slowly. Slow grass carries more of what the milk will later be judged on.

Observations taken through the season. What the pasture looked like, what the churn gave, what the butter smelled of before any heat.

The producer’s own account of the year, recorded as it was given to us rather than tidied afterwards.

Water leaves as steam. The milk solids fall, colour, and are strained away. What remains is close to pure butterfat.

Read the colour, the smell when cold, and the clarity when melted. Then read the label. One line is the answer you want.

The places under consideration, and what recommends each of them. A country names a market, not a farm, so the list is kept in terms of ground and altitude.

Variety sets the ceiling: what the bean can give in aroma, in bitterness, and in the compounds we intend to preserve.

Fermentation, drying, roasting, alkalisation, milling. Each stage takes something. We are mapping how much, and at what temperature it begins.

Samples tasted blind against one another, in water and in milk, warm and cold, before anything is known about their origin.

The finished powder is measured, not the promise of the region it came from. Results are recorded for every lot we consider.

The place will be named here when the source has earned it, and not before.

Folded through at the end, off the heat, so each grain carries it. The rice loosens and the aroma arrives before the dish does.

Melted over bread as it comes off the heat. The simplest test of a ghee, and the one it can least hide from.

Stirred through dates and halwa, the sweet kept for company. The oldest way, and still the one that matters.

For eggs, for onions taken slowly, for anything that wants a high heat without bitterness. It is a fat to cook in, not only to finish with.

A dry spoon, a closed jar, a cool shelf away from the sun. Nothing more is required of the household.

Why a release ends rather than expands. Production returns to the pace our standards allow, and the list is served first.

What a source must show us before it is named on a label, and why we would rather say nothing for a season.

Letters written to the households who took the first jars, and what they told us in return.