I have thrown out more jars of tahini than I care to admit. Bland, thin, with a harsh aftertaste that made my hummus taste like ground cardboard. I assumed that was just what tahini tasted like. Then I tried a jar made by a small workshop in Bangkok that roasts their own sesame — and I understood, for the first time, what I had been missing.
Zivvy's is a nut butter manufacturer based in Bangkok that does something almost no commercial tahini producer does: they source raw white sesame seeds, roast them in-house themselves, and stone-grind them the same day. The result lands in a jar with one ingredient listed on the label. White sesame. That is the whole list.
What follows is a detailed breakdown of what that actually means for your cooking — and why, once you understand the difference between tahini made this way and everything else on the shelf, it becomes difficult to go back.
Commercial tahini producers buy pre-roasted sesame from suppliers. By the time those seeds are ground and jarred, the roast is days or weeks old. The oils have already begun oxidising. The flavour has flattened.
Zivvy's roasts their own sesame. Every batch. In Bangkok. They control the temperature, the time, and the colour — and they stone-grind it the same day the roasting is done. That is why the flavour is immediate and alive rather than dull and one-dimensional. You are tasting sesame at the peak of its flavour, not after it has sat in a supply chain.
Thai white sesame has a naturally assertive character — a pleasant, aromatic depth that distinguishes it from milder imported varieties. When roasted correctly and ground fresh, that character comes through cleanly in every spoonful.
Turn over most tahini jars sold in Thailand. You will find sesame — and then added oil, emulsifiers, or stabilisers listed alongside it. These are added to create a uniform consistency, prevent separation, and extend shelf life. They are not there for flavour. They are there for convenience at a manufacturing scale.
Zivvy's label has one word: white sesame.
No added oil. No emulsifiers. No stabilisers. No preservatives. The natural oil from the sesame itself — released during stone-grinding — provides all the consistency the tahini needs. When you see oil separation at the top of a Zivvy's jar, that is not a defect. That is the proof that nothing artificial is holding it together. A quick stir with a spoon restores it completely.
| What's in your tahini | Zivvy's | Typical imported brand |
|---|---|---|
| White sesame | ✓ Only ingredient | ✓ |
| Added vegetable oil | ✗ None | Often added |
| Emulsifiers / stabilisers | ✗ None | Common |
| Roasted in-house | ✓ Every batch | Pre-roasted by supplier |
| Stone-ground | ✓ Same day as roast | Industrial processing |
| Made in Thailand | ✓ Bangkok | Imported |
If your hummus has ever come out grainy, thin, or lacking that smooth luxurious texture you get at a good restaurant — the tahini was almost certainly the problem. Not the chickpeas. Not the lemon. Not the garlic. The tahini.
Restaurant-quality hummus requires a tahini with enough natural body and depth to carry the whole dish. A tahini that has been diluted with added oil, or made from sesame that was ground weeks ago, simply does not have that body. It blends in, contributes nothing, and leaves you with a flat result no matter how long you process it.
With Zivvy's — two tablespoons is enough to transform the entire texture and flavour of a batch of hummus. The natural richness of freshly stone-ground sesame creates that smooth, glossy, restaurant-quality finish that makes people ask for the recipe.
Roasted in-house. Stone-ground fresh.
Tahini is a natural emulsifier. When whisked with acid — lemon juice, apple cider vinegar — and diluted with a little water, it creates a dressing that has body, clings to ingredients, and does not pool at the bottom of the bowl.
The reason most homemade tahini dressings are watery and thin is the same reason the hummus doesn't work: the tahini itself lacks the body to hold the emulsion. Add oil to a thin tahini dressing and you get separated oil. Add oil to a properly made tahini dressing and you get a silky, glossy, restaurant-quality sauce that coats every leaf, grain, or roasted vegetable it touches.
Zivvy's tahini — with its natural density from stone-grinding and no added oil diluting its body — creates dressings that have the consistency you are trying to achieve. Two tablespoons, a squeeze of lemon, a clove of garlic, water to thin. That is the whole recipe. And it works every time.
Most people in Thailand use tahini for hummus and little else. Once you have tahini that actually tastes like something, the use cases expand significantly.
In smoothies and oatmeal. One tablespoon adds healthy fats, calcium, and a creamy nutty depth without overpowering the other flavours. It thickens your smoothie naturally and keeps you full significantly longer than a smoothie without it.
As a marinade base. Mixed with lemon, garlic, and cumin, tahini creates a marinade that caramelises beautifully under heat — forming a glaze on chicken, fish, or cauliflower that adds colour and a deep roasted nuttiness.
Drizzled over roasted vegetables. Roasted sweet potato, broccoli, or aubergine finished with a tahini sauce transforms a side dish into the centrepiece of a meal. The nutty depth cuts through the natural sweetness of roasted vegetables perfectly.
Swirled into yoghurt. A spoonful of tahini swirled into plain yoghurt, finished with honey and a sprinkle of sesame seeds, is a breakfast or dessert that takes thirty seconds and tastes like it came from a café.
As a dip base beyond hummus. Baba ganoush, moutabal, and mutabal all require tahini as their foundation. With the right tahini, these dips have a depth that hummus alone cannot match.
In noodle sauces. Thai and regional noodle sauces that call for sesame paste work exceptionally well with good tahini — it carries more flavour than commercial sesame paste and blends more smoothly into sauces.
In baking. Tahini in cookies, brownies, and banana bread adds a complex nuttiness and a moist, rich texture that peanut butter cannot replicate. The sesame flavour is more subtle and works with both chocolate and fruit-based recipes.
Industrial processing uses high-speed steel blade grinders that generate significant heat. That heat degrades the sesame's natural oils — the compounds responsible for its flavour, aroma, and nutritional value — before the tahini ever reaches the jar.
Stone-grinding uses two large stone wheels moving slowly against each other. The friction is lower. The heat generated is dramatically less. The sesame's natural oils — which contain the flavour, the richness, and the nutritional content — are preserved through the grinding process rather than damaged by it.
The result is tahini with more flavour, more natural richness, and a smoother texture than industrially processed alternatives. It is not subtle. Side by side, the difference is immediately apparent in colour, consistency, and taste.
Imported tahini travels. From the country of production, through a distributor, through customs, into a warehouse, onto a shelf, into your kitchen. The time between roasting and your spoon can be six months or more. The sesame oil in that jar has been oxidising the entire time.
Zivvy's is made in Bangkok. The sesame is roasted here. Ground here. Jarred here. The time between roasting and your kitchen is measured in days, not months. The oils are fresh. The flavour is at its peak. The product that arrives at your door is not the same age as an imported jar — it is categorically younger, fresher, and more alive.
For Thailand specifically, there is an additional advantage: the production is in the same climate your kitchen operates in. The tahini has not travelled across hemispheres and through temperature-controlled shipping containers. It was made here, for kitchens here.
White sesame is one of the most nutrient-dense ingredients available. It is a meaningful source of calcium, iron, zinc, and B vitamins. It contains lignans — compounds with antioxidant properties. Its fat content is predominantly unsaturated, with a balanced ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.
The critical variable is what happens to those nutrients during processing. High-heat industrial grinding degrades heat-sensitive compounds — including some of the fat-soluble vitamins and the delicate polyunsaturated fatty acids. Stone-grinding, with its lower friction and heat, preserves more of what was in the sesame to begin with.
Two tablespoons of Zivvy's tahini added to your morning smoothie, stirred into oatmeal, or drizzled over a bowl delivers protein, healthy fats, and minerals in a form that your body recognises as food — not a processed extract. It keeps you full for hours and adds a creaminess and depth that plant-based milks and protein powders cannot replicate.
Professional kitchens operate on consistency. A head chef cannot afford a tahini that performs differently batch to batch. The hummus on the menu must taste identical every time it is served — at lunch on a Tuesday and at dinner on a Saturday.
Zivvy's tahini is stone-ground in small batches with the same sesame source, the same roast specification, and the same grind each time. The consistency is the result of a controlled process — not a factory formula — which means it is genuinely reproducible in a way that mass-produced tahini with variable supplier roasts is not.
Restaurants using Zivvy's for their hummus, dressings, and mezze report that their kitchen time reduces — because the tahini requires no adjustment, no correction, no compensating for inconsistency. It performs the same way every time they open a jar.
Pick up any tahini jar in a supermarket. Turn it over. Read the ingredient list.
If you see anything other than sesame — added oil, emulsifiers, salt, stabilisers — the manufacturer did not trust the sesame to do the work on its own. They added something to compensate for what the sesame alone could not deliver: a consistent texture, a longer shelf life, a uniform appearance.
Zivvy's ingredient list has one word. White sesame. That word is the entire argument for this product. It means the sesame was good enough, roasted carefully enough, and ground properly enough that nothing else was needed. It means what you are tasting is sesame — completely, purely, without qualification.
The single-ingredient test is the simplest and most reliable way to evaluate any nut butter or seed paste. And Zivvy's passes it without exception, in every jar, every batch.