On 17 Oct 2015 a catalog for Penzeys Spices (see below), which was addressed to Julee, a former tenant of my building, showed up in my mailbox. I found that the only Penzeys Spices store in Massachusetts is at 1293 Mass Ave in Arlington. They were promising a free bottle of Natural High Fat Cocoa, a $4.95 value, while supplies last. I decided to go on safari to Penzeys.
Trip
On 27 Oct 2015 I drove over to Penzeys. It wasn't that much of an adventure since it's only about two blocks from Trader Joe's; it took me eleven minutes to get there. The biggest adventure was finding a parking place. (After I had found a place, I noticed that Penzeys has a parking lot, so going there should entail no adventure at all.) Below is a picture of the store, with the parking lot in the background.
I went in, took out my camera, and started taking pictures. Almost immediately a saleslady approached me, and the following exchange occurred.
Saleslady: I'm sorry, but we don't allow pictures in here.
Fruit Explorer: Why not?
SL: Pictures of everything in here are available on the website.
FE: I just wanted to take some pictures of the store to send to some of my friends.
SL: Pictures of everything in here are available on the website.
FE: Since this is the only store in Massachusetts, my friends want to know what it's like before they drive all the way here.
SL: Pictures of everything in here are available on the website.
FE: They want to know what this particular store is like. After all, it might be that not everything on the website is in this store.
SL: You're not taking pictures of the entire store. You're taking pictures of specific items.
FE: What possible harm could it do you if I took pictures?
SL: Pictures of everything in here are available on the website.
Unable to argue with her logic, I put away my camera. This thirty second exchange converted me from an eager customer into a hostile presence.
As I continued to browse, I found that many of their "spices" were actually special purpose mixtures. For example, Galena Street is a chicken and rib rub composed of salt, sugar, black pepper, and five more spices. Tuscan Sunset (use unspecified) contains basil, oregrano, and six other spices. Arizona Dreaming (use unspecified) contains ground ancho (a type of chile pepper), onion, and nine more spices.
Walking through this store was like a trip down Fruit Explorer memory lane as I encountered many items I have written about. Each spice is typically laid out on a spacious shelf with several variants that are very well signed. For pictures and full details, you will have to go to the aforementioned site, Penzeys.com.
I first hit the cinnamon (5 Nov 2015) section and was pleased to see that they had all four kinds of cinnamon (Ceylonese, Chinese, Indonesian, Viet Namese) clearly labeled. I checked the thickness of the Ceylonese cinnamon sticks and verified that indeed they were Ceylonese. The prices varied fro $4.40 to $7.95 for a half cup bottle, and the prices reflected the quality of each type. I picked up a bottle of Ceylon cinnamon.
I will quickly go over some of the other offerings. They had several varieties of cocoa (16 May 2015), black and white peppercorns (16 Oct 2015) plus various mixtures of different types of peppercorns, whole yellow and brown mustard seeds (12 June 2015) but not black, ginger (13 Nov 2015) in various forms but no hands of ginger, whole and ground cloves (22 Oct 2015), and whole vanilla beans (22 May 2015). They had blade mace, i.e., the mace as removed from the nutmeg nut but not ground, and both whole and ground nutmeg (30 Oct 2015). Since I had not seen whole nutmeg anywhere else, I asked permission to take a picture, and this request was granted; see this picture in the e-mail of 30 Oct 2015. It's a good thing I took this picture because, when I later looked on the website, there was no picture (see below). In person, a whole nutmeg is surprisingly small, about 2/3 of an inch long. It looks like a cross between a small pecan and a small walnut. The sign said that it took 80 of them to make a pound. They had lots of unexpected things, e.g., juniper berries.
When I went to check out and pay for my cinnamon, I presented the coupon for my free bottle of cocoa powder and was told, "I'm sorry, but you'll have to come back. We ran out of that this morning. " Yeah, sure. I had just seen the cocoa powder shelf, and there was no space and no sign for the variety they were giving away free.
Gift Idea
This whole store is one big gift idea for anyone who eats. You can wander the isles and pick up a vial of vanilla beans or a bag of whole nutmegs. If you want a more formal gift, you can select one of the pre-packaged gift boxes. Three are pictured below. (These are the only pictures I got before the saleslady cut me off.)
- Hot Chocolate Gift Set for $37.59.
- Two Hearts Gift Crate for $204.99.
- Taco Seasonings Gift Box for $45.55.
The Verdict
So what do I think of this store? It's a special purpose store that sells a narrow range of items, but within this narrow range it has exceptionally good coverage. The prices are a little high, but given the difficulty of finding some of these items, the variety of forms in which each spice is offered, and the unusual care taken in labeling, I conclude that this is the place to go for spices.
Rick
P.S. Below is the latest Fruit Explorer art work, "Sticker Shock VII," which was assembled from 2 Oct to 13 Nov 2015. The new feature introduced in this art work is that it is symmetrical around the center line.
