写真

Simply put, caviar is any single salted fish roe or egg. In the United States, as long as the species of the fish precedes the word "caviar", it is considered caviar. TRUE caviar comes from the icy waters of the Caspian Sea where the environment is most conducive to producing the finest sturgeon. Ninety percent of the caviar produced in the world comes from the Caspian Sea.
Sturgeons have an unerring survival instinct. These bottom-dwellers with their sensitive barbels and pouted snouts have existed for millennia. Even to this day, relatives of the sturgeon live in the black depths of the ocean, in subterranean watercourses, even in hot springs. Sturgeons are scaleless except for five rows of large, pointed, platelike scales running along the top and sides of the body. Their exoskeleton is part bone and part cartilage, placing them midway between sharks and bony fish.

They can live for 100 years, and reach maturity between 12 and 20 years of age. Sturgeons are anadromous, living as adults in marine waters but returning to freshwater rivers and streams to breed.

There are almost 20 different types of sturgeon, two of them belong to the genus Huso, the others are of the genus Acipenser. Six of them live in the Caspian Sea, only three sturgeon species produce this exquisite caviar: Beluga, Asetra, and Sevruga yielding over 90% of the world's total production.