The origin of Black Rock
Sixteen thousand feet. Months in the sun.
One product. One source. Everything we know about where it comes from.
Karakoram Range · Gilgit-Baltistan
01 · Why we started
There was nothing on the UK shelf we would have bought twice.
The first jar I bought was a powder. The second was a capsule. The third was sold as resin, arrived soft and sweet, and dissolved into cloudy water with grit at the bottom. None of the three could tell me which valley it came from, and none of them had a lab report to show me.
That is the whole of the UK Shilajit market as I found it. Powder sold as resin. No published testing. No named source. A product that trades entirely on where it comes from, sold by people who either didn't know or wouldn't say.
So I went and looked. Gilgit-Baltistan, in the Karakoram, is where the resin we buy is extracted, and it is where we go back to. We buy from the men who work the rock face, not from a broker who buys from them.
Then I paid a UK lab that has no relationship with us to test it, and published the certificate in full. Not a summary, not a claim on a label. The document, with the reference number on it, so anyone can check it.
The first jar I bought was a powder. The second was a capsule. The third was sold as resin, arrived soft and sweet, and dissolved into cloudy water with grit at the bottom. None of them could tell me which valley it came from, and none had a lab report to show me.
That is the UK Shilajit market as I found it. Powder sold as resin, no published testing, no named source.
So I went and looked. We buy from the men who work the rock face in Gilgit-Baltistan, not from a broker who buys from them.
Then I paid a UK lab with no relationship to us to test it, and published the certificate in full. The document, with the reference number on it, so anyone can check.
02 · The people we buy from
We buy from the men who extract it.
No broker, no trading house, no middle layer that buys in bulk and blends batches from wherever is cheapest that season.
It is a relationship we keep, not a purchase we made once. The same collectors, the same seams, the same people to call when something needs checking.
No broker, no trading house, no middle layer that buys in bulk and blends batches from wherever is cheapest that season.
It is a relationship we keep, not a purchase we made once. The same collectors, the same seams, the same people to call when something needs checking.
03 · The process
From the mountain to your jar.
One batch, start to finish.
Rock face · visible seepFound in the rock face
Karakoram Range, Gilgit-Baltistan, 16,000-18,000ft. The resin seeps from fissures in the rock through the warmer months.
Collector at the faceExtracted by hand
Collectors rope in to the face and work the seams by hand. We buy direct from them, not through a broker.
Filtration · filter bagMulti-stage filtered
Raw material is dissolved and strained to remove plant matter and grit. Food-grade stainless, not a bucket in a yard.
Drying trays · open sunlightSun-dried, never heat-dried
The longest stage and the whole cost difference. Slow drying in open sunlight retains compounds that fast heat-processing destroys. This is the step most sellers skip.
Finished resin · near-black, glossyDark, glassy, finished
Finished resin: near-black, glossy, stretches from a spatula and dissolves cleanly. Powder cannot fake it.
Eurofins · AR-25-UD-075543-01Tested in the UK
Every batch goes to Eurofins before it goes on sale. Heavy metals within UK safe limits. Certificate AR-25-UD-075543-01, published in full.
30g · pure resinJarred and shipped
30g per jar, dispatched from the UK.
Swipe through the process →
04 · Why sun-drying matters
Months in the sun, or an afternoon on a heater.
Drying is the step that decides what you end up with, and it is the step nobody advertises. Resin has to lose water before it can be jarred. You can do that slowly in open sunlight, or quickly with applied heat.
Slow sun-drying retains compounds that fast heat-processing destroys. That is the reason we do it, and it is the only reason. Sun-dried, never heat-dried.
We say never heat-dried rather than no heat, because it would not be true to claim no heat anywhere in the process. Filtration can involve warm water. Drying does not involve heat at all.
Drying decides what you end up with, and nobody advertises it. Resin has to lose water before it can be jarred. You can do that slowly in open sunlight, or quickly with applied heat.
Slow sun-drying retains compounds that fast heat-processing destroys. Sun-dried, never heat-dried.
We say never heat-dried rather than no heat, because filtration can involve warm water. Drying does not involve heat at all.
Slow, weather-dependent and impossible to rush. It is the longest stage of the process by a wide margin and the single largest cost in the jar.The longest stage by a wide margin and the single largest cost in the jar.
Faster, cheaper, predictable, and it damages the compounds that made the material worth extracting. A seller who dries with heat can turn a batch around in a week.Faster and cheaper, and it damages the compounds that made the material worth extracting.
Months of drying is the entire cost difference between our jar and a cheaper one. Not packaging, not branding, not margin. Time.
05 · Independent testing
Then we paid a lab that doesn't work for us.
05 · Independent testing
Then we paid a lab that doesn't work for us.
Eurofins is independent and UKAS-accredited. They have no stake in the result and no relationship with us beyond the invoice. Every batch goes to them before it goes on sale.
They test for heavy metals, which come back within UK safe limits, plus microbiological safety, identity and purity. We publish the certificate in full rather than quoting from it, because a quote is just a claim again.
Most sellers don't publish. Testing costs money per batch and a published document can be checked. Both of those are reasons we do it.
Eurofins is independent and UKAS-accredited, with no stake in the result. Every batch goes to them before it goes on sale.
Heavy metals come back within UK safe limits, plus microbiological safety, identity and purity. We publish the certificate in full rather than quoting from it, because a quote is just a claim again.
06 · From here
Where it goes from here.
One product, one source, and no plans to add a second until we can stand behind it the same way. If we ever sell something else, it will arrive with a certificate and a named valley or it won't arrive at all.
The nearer-term work is photographic and documentary: our own footage of every stage, including the drying, so the process on this page is shown rather than described.
If you want to know something that isn't on this page, ask us. A UK team answers, and if we don't know, we will say so.
One product, one source, and no plans to add a second until we can stand behind it the same way.
The nearer-term work is photographic: our own footage of every stage, including the drying, so the process is shown rather than described.
If you want to know something that isn't on this page, ask us. A UK team answers, and if we don't know, we will say so.
Black Rock Shilajit Resin
That is the whole story. The jar is the short version.
30g of pure resin, sun-dried over months, tested by Eurofins UK. 60-day money-back guarantee. Try a jar. Not for you? Full refund.
See the product