No. 12 — Who is behind the counter
We are two rooms,
one mill and a lot of tins.
Anjali Rao started Tiffin Row because every jar of ground cumin she could buy in Humble tasted like the inside of a cardboard box. Ten years on, the argument has not changed — only the equipment.
The whole idea
Ground spice is a perishable, and almost nobody treats it like one.
A cumin seed keeps its oils for years. Ground cumin keeps them for about eight weeks. That single fact explains most of what is wrong with the spice aisle: a jar milled eighteen months ago in another hemisphere, shipped, warehoused, and then asked to carry a dish.
So we buy seed, bark, pod and root. We mill in weekly batches, and we write the date on the lid where you can see it. If a tin has been sitting on our shelf for four months, it comes off and goes into staff lunch. It is a slightly inconvenient way to run a shop and a very good way to run a spice cupboard.
We do not add anti-caking agents, silica, flour, colour or "natural flavour". If a blend has salt in it, the label says how much. If a blend is mostly one thing, the label says that too — several of ours are embarrassingly simple and we would rather you knew before you paid $11.99 for it.
Fair warning
Tiffin Row is a demonstration storefront: an invented brand, built to exercise a real catalogue's worth of product data, photography and shop mechanics. The counter in Humble does not exist, the growers named here are placeholders, and no order placed on this site is fulfilled.
The milling ledger
Ten years, abbreviated.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2016 | A folding table at the Byrd Park market. Nine spices, hand-labelled, sold out by noon. |
| 2017 | First stone burr mill, bought secondhand from a bakery that was closing. |
| 2019 | The Humble counter opens. We start dating the lids. |
| 2021 | Refill programme begins. First year: 1,900 tins come back. |
| 2023 | Direct contracts with four growers in Kerala, Guatemala and Gaziantep. |
| 2025 | The shelf passes 170 lines. We stop adding and start editing. |
| 2026 | Second mill installed. Wednesdays are now also milling days. |
| Origin | Lines | On the shelf |
|---|---|---|
| Blended in Humble | 56 | Butter Chicken Spice Packet, Tiffin Row Handmade Flavour Matchbox, Tiffin Row loves MSG enamel pin +53 more |
| Domestic, USA | 6 | N'Humble Hot Chicken Seasoning, 3 Pack Ultimate BBQ Collection, Sweet Hickory BBQ Rub +3 more |
| Gaziantep, Türkiye | 7 | Poultry Seasoning, Za'atar, 3 Pack Middle Eastern Collection +4 more |
| Grenada | 2 | Mace Powder, Red Pepper, Crushed |
| Guatemala Highlands | 2 | 3 Pack Golden Milk Collection, Cardamom, Green Powder |
| Kashmir, India | 1 | Kashmiri Chilli Powder |
| Kerala, India | 2 | Black Pepper, Table Grind, Cardamom, Whole Green |
| Oaxaca, Mexico | 6 | Dark Chilli Powder, Ancho Chilli Powder, Chipotle Chilli Powder +3 more |
| Peloponnese, Greece | 11 | Amore Italian Seasoning, Fenugreek Powder, Tuscan Seasoning +8 more |
| Rajasthan, India | 51 | Salted Honey, Tikka Masala Spice Packet, Saag Paneer Spice Packet +48 more |
| Sambava, Madagascar | 2 | 3 Pack Signature Sugar Collection, Vanilla Bean Sugar |
| Sfax, Tunisia | 3 | Chef Cheetie Kumar's Rose Harissa, Berbere, Harissa |
| Shizuoka, Japan | 1 | Furikake |
| Sichuan, China | 3 | Korean BBQ Rub, 3 Pack Hot Stuff Chilli Collection, Gochugaru Chilli Flakes |
| Sri Lanka | 12 | Maple French Toast Sugar, Mulling Spice, Cinnamon Roll Deluxe Hot Chocolate +9 more |
| Vietnam | 1 | Ground White Pepper |
| Zanzibar, Tanzania | 4 | High Five Chai Blend, Minced Black Garlic, 3 Pack Garlic Lover's Collection +1 more |
No. 15 — Come by
The counter, in person
Bring an empty tin, ask us to grind something coarse, argue with us about whether Ceylon cinnamon is worth four times the price. (It is.)
Tue–Sat, 10–6
(713) 453-1480
info@tiffinrow.site
Milling: Tue + Wed, from 7am