Kairos Seasoning Recipe

Kairos seasoning comes from Kairos Artisan Blends, a small maker of spice blends in the Pacific Northwest, and its best-known blend is the Black Sea Salt and Coffee Rub. The jar names seven ingredients. This copy stirs them together in five minutes: two tablespoons each of black sea salt and finely ground coffee, with chile powder, Tellicherry pepper, garlic, onion and turmeric.

What Kairos seasoning is

Kairos Artisan Blends sells eight blends on its site on 2 October 2026: the Black Sea Salt & Coffee Rub, the American Heritage Blend, a Roasted Garlic Blend, a Texas Style Rub, a Santa Maria Rub, a Western Winged Rub, an Old Mexico Taco Mix and a Sriracha Sea Salt, at $15.99 to $22.95 a jar.

The company calls the Black Sea Salt & Coffee Rub its most iconic blend, made for brisket, ribeyes, venison and wild game and handcrafted in the Pacific Northwest. A picture on that page names what is in the jar: Hawaiian black sea salt, organic decaf coffee, New Mexico chili powder, Tellicherry pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and turmeric.

The proportions are not given, so the amounts below are this site's own. MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Kairos Artisan Blends.

Recipe

Black Sea Salt and Coffee Rub

A reconstruction of Kairos Artisan Blends' Black Sea Salt and Coffee Rub — black sea salt, finely ground coffee, New Mexico chile powder, Tellicherry pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and turmeric. About 7 tablespoons.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

5 min

Total

5 min

Serves

7

Cuisine

American

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons sea salt (Hawaiian black lava salt)
• 2 tablespoons finely ground coffee
• 1 tablespoon New Mexico chile powder
• 2 teaspoons coarsely ground Tellicherry black pepper
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

Instructions

1. If the salt is coarse, crush it in a mortar or under a rolling pin to the size of coarse sand.
2. Stir the salt, the coffee, the chile powder, the pepper, the garlic powder, the onion powder and the turmeric together in a small bowl until evenly mixed.
3. Store the rub in a jar with a tight lid. Use about 1 tablespoon for a pound of meat.

Nutrition

Calories:

15

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

The seven ingredients of the Kairos coffee rub

• Hawaiian black sea salt is sea salt blended with activated charcoal, which makes it black. Kosher salt gives the same seasoning without the colour: use the same amount.
• Coffee, ground as fine as for espresso. Coarse grounds stay gritty on the meat. Decaf is what the jar names, and regular coffee works the same way in a rub.
• New Mexico chile powder is pure ground chile, mild and a little sweet. A chili powder blend with cumin and oregano in it changes the taste; ancho chile powder is the nearer substitute.
• Tellicherry pepper is a grade of large black peppercorns. Any freshly ground black pepper does the job.

How to use a coffee rub

A tablespoon seasons a pound of steak; brisket and ribs take about twice that. Pat the meat dry, press the rub on and let it stand for 30 minutes at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator for a large cut.

Coffee and chile darken quickly. On a steak seared over high heat the crust turns nearly black, and that is the rub, not burnt meat. For long cooking at low heat, as with brisket, the rub forms the dark bark.

The recipe makes about 7 tablespoons, enough for seven pounds of steak. More than a quarter of it is salt, so the meat needs no other salt. For chicken, the Weber Kick'n Chicken seasoning is the blend on this site.

Keeping it

In a closed jar away from light the rub keeps its strength for about three months. After that the coffee tastes flat. Stir it before use, because the salt sinks.

Other blends to mix at home on this site are the McCormick Italian seasoning and the Taco Bell seasoning.