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Pulses
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Pulses
Heirloom lentils and beans grown on rain-fed mountain terraces.
3 products
Products
The method
How the pulses are grown and cleaned
Rajma, gahat and bhatt are grown rain-fed on mountain terraces with no irrigation and no chemical input, threshed and sorted by hand, and left unpolished. The grain stays small, which is where the flavour is.
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Step 1 of 4
Grown rain-fed on terraces
No irrigation and no chemical input — the crop gets the rain the season gives it. Yields are a fraction of what the plains produce, and the grain is smaller and denser for it.
Rain-fed only
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Step 2 of 4
Harvested and threshed by hand
Cut, stacked to dry in the field, then beaten out. Machine threshing splits the grain, and split grain neither keeps nor cooks the same way.
Hand-threshed
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Step 3 of 4
Winnowed and picked over by hand
Chaff is winnowed off in the hill wind, then the grain is picked over by hand for stones and broken pieces. Nothing is polished — the skin is where most of the fibre sits.
Unpolished
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Step 4 of 4
Packed and tested
Packed without fumigation. Every lot is tested for pesticide residue and heavy metals before it ships.
No fumigation
Before you order
Questions about this
Why do these take longer to cook?
Because they are unpolished and grown slowly on rain-fed terraces, so the grain is denser than commodity pulses. Soak them for a few hours and they cook normally. Polishing makes a pulse cook faster by taking its skin off, and most of the fibre goes with it.
Are they treated with anything in storage?
No. They are packed without fumigation, which is why we recommend an airtight container. Every lot is tested for pesticide residue and heavy metals before it ships.
Why are the grains small and uneven?
Because they are heirloom varieties grown without irrigation or chemical input, and sorted by hand rather than graded by machine. Uniform grain is a sign of a hybrid crop and a mechanical sort, not of quality.
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly
Also from Himdhara
The rest of the pantry
Everything Himdhara makes comes from the same Uttarakhand valleys and is held to the same batch testing, whichever category it belongs to.
