1. Ancient Appearance
Sturgeons haven’t changed their appearance since the dinosaur era. They look as ancient as in fact they are. These heavy grey monsters have brightly colored sharp crests (similar to a crown, no wonder why sturgeon are called the queen of fish) along their spine and a mouth located on their chin. Often you can see upside down sturgeons hunting for fodder in the water for easier food access since their mouthes are located on the undersides of their chins.
2. Sturgeon gives different caviar
Each sturgeon species produces different roe in size, taste and color.
There are currently 2 families of sturgeon known to be in existence today, acipenseridae and polyodontidae, which comprise a total of 28 sturgeon species in the family).
Beluga’s roe has grey color and is almost of the size of a green pea, has rich buttery taste and cost the most, about $800 USD/oz. Importing of Beluga (HusoxHuso) is banned to the United States, only one company with it’s farm in Florida has a legal rights to raise Beluga sturgeon and sell its roe.
Russian Osetra Caviar (Gue) has smaller beads but gives more intense nutty flavor.
Sevruga (Stellatus) produces the smallest eggs with briny and earthy flavor. All 28 sturgeon species can produce caviar and only their roe is considered a true caviar, unlike salmon or paddlefish roe that can’t be called caviar.
Also there are many caviar hybrids, for example Bester Caviar is a hybrid of Beluga and Sterlet. First letters in hybrid identify mother and last letters identify father.
Ukrainian entrepreneur sourced from an aqua farm in Ukraine with the name Bester and started import to USA. You can order high quality fresh caviar on their website bestercaviarstore.com
3. Sturgeon has lived on the planet for over 200 million years and out lived dinosaurs. Sturgeons take up to 8-18 years to sexually mature depending on the species and to produce caviar. Sterlet fish matures in 8 years, while Osetra takes 10-12 years, Beluga matures only after 18 years.
Size of mature sturgeon can vary from a couple kilos (Sterlet is one of the smallest fish with the smallest roe) to a couple tons (the largest Beluga was ever caught weighed 1,571kg and was 7.2m long). As a rule of thumb caviar takes up to 10-15% of the fish weight.
For example 5kg sturgeon produces only 10% of its weight, so only 500g caviar will be harvested.
It takes many long years of feeding sturgeon in order to receive precious caviar. That is one of the reasons why caviar is so expensive.
Sturgeon life span is very similar human’s… they can live up to 70 years or more.
4. The most rare and expensive caviar in the World “Almas” produced from the Iranian Beluga fish that was regularly sold at auction 1 kilo(2.2 lbs) for $34,500 USD.
Almas is produced from the eggs of rare Albino sturgeon between 60-100 years old which habitats in Southern Caspian Sea. Only 0.1% of Beluga is born as albino without color pigment that makes fish look white-goldish so it’s roe. Several entrepreneurs tried to breed albino beluga with almost no luck, such a rare disease not always being inherited from parents.
5. Sturgeon have no teeth and you can eaily feed sturgeon from hands if you get lucky to visit one of the aqua farms anywhere in the World. Nowadays almost every country has an aquafarm or a few that produces sturgeon. China became the world leader in caviar production and import due to lower than market prices.
Bester Caviar is for the quality rather then price… Bester Caviar works with the most experienced farms in the World such as Karat in Israel and French company Rova in Madagascar. Bester Caviar supplies the best restaurants in Florida and offers the only premium black caviar at 40% off market price. This is because Bester imports caviar from non-taxed countries and passes on savings to you.
Visit bestercaviarstore.com to indulge into luxurious taste without the luxurious price.
Written by Inna Polutska