~17% of seed mass
Hull
Testa
The husk. It carries most of the seed’s calcium and nearly all of its oxalate and fibre, along with the bitterness. Whether it is removed is the single biggest decision in tahini production.
A field guide to the oldest oilseed on earth
Tahini
One ingredient. Sesame, ground until it gives up its oil and becomes its own sauce — no emulsifier, no water, nothing added.
01Origins
The first oilseed
Sesame was domesticated before the olive, before the sunflower, before rapeseed. It is very probably the oldest crop humans ever grew specifically for its oil — and tahini is the shortest possible route from the seed to the table.
-
c. 3000 BCE
The Indian subcontinent
Sesamum indicum is domesticated from its wild relative Sesamum mulayanum. Charred seeds recovered from Harappan sites put cultivation in the Indus Valley by the middle of the third millennium BCE.
-
c. 2000 BCE
Mesopotamia
Sesame oil is traded and taxed across Assyria and Babylonia, recorded in cuneiform as šamaššammū. It is the region’s dominant cooking fat long before olive oil reaches it in quantity.
-
13th century CE
Cairo & Damascus
Ṭaḥīna — from the Arabic ṭaḥana, simply “to grind” — appears in Arabic culinary manuscripts as a ground sesame paste used in sauces and sweets, essentially as it is used now.
-
16th–19th century
The Ottoman Levant
Stone-milling towns specialise. Nablus becomes the name attached to the best tahini and the halva made from it, a reputation the city has not let go of since.
-
20th century
The Horn of Africa
Ethiopia and Sudan emerge as the source of the most prized seed. Humera-type sesame from the Ethiopian lowlands becomes the benchmark for pale colour and sweetness.
-
2000s →
Global retail
Tahini stops being a Middle Eastern speciality and turns into a mainstream ingredient in European and North American kitchens — sold as a paste in its own right rather than as an input to hummus.
Dates are archaeological and textual estimates and are given as ranges where the record is uncertain. Sesame’s exact centre of domestication is still argued, with a competing case made for an African origin.
02Anatomy
Inside the seed
A sesame seed is roughly three millimetres long and about half oil by weight. Almost everything that distinguishes one tahini from another is decided by which parts of that seed survive into the mill.
~83% of seed mass
Cotyledons
The kernel
The two halves that make up the kernel — around 50% oil and 20% protein. Ground fine enough, they release that oil and suspend themselves in it. This is the whole of tahini.
~1–2% of the oil
Lignans
Sesamin & sesamolin
Natural antioxidants almost unique to sesame. They are the reason sesame oil resists going rancid far longer than its high unsaturated content should allow.
Hulled
The standard for tahini
- Colour
- Pale cream to ivory
- Flavour
- Sweet, mild, low bitterness
- Calcium
- Much reduced
- Used for
- Most commercial tahini and halva
Unhulled
Whole-seed tahini
- Colour
- Tan to deep brown
- Flavour
- Bitter, earthy, assertive
- Calcium
- ~975 mg per 100 g of seed
- Used for
- Wholefood tahini, some regional styles
The calcium gap between whole and hulled sesame is dramatic but less useful than it looks: much of the calcium in the hull is bound up as calcium oxalate, a form the body absorbs poorly. Whole-seed tahini is a genuinely different ingredient, not simply a healthier one.
03Specs
The numbers
Tahini is among the most nutrient-dense things in any kitchen: roughly half fat, a fifth protein, and unusually heavy in copper, phosphorus and thiamin for a single-ingredient paste.
Per 100 g
TahiniWhole seed
Energy
573kcal573kcal
Protein
17.8g17.7g
Total fat
48g49.7g
of which saturated
6.7g7g
of which monounsaturated
18.1g18.8g
of which polyunsaturated
21g21.8g
Carbohydrate
26.2g23.4g
Dietary fibre
9.3g11.8g
Sodium
74mg11mg
The fat itself
Sesame oil, typical fatty acid profile
- Linoleic acid (ω-6)
- ~41%
- Oleic acid (ω-9)
- ~39%
- Palmitic acid
- ~9%
- Stearic acid
- ~5%
- Saturated, total
- ~14%
- Smoke point, refined
- ~210 °C
Micronutrients
Tahini, per 100 g
- Calcium
- 420 mg
- Phosphorus
- 752 mg
- Magnesium
- 96 mg
- Zinc
- 4.7 mg
- Copper
- 1.6 mg
- Thiamin (B1)
- 1.28 mg
Why it keeps
Roughly 80% of sesame fat is unsaturated, which ought to make it fragile — unsaturated bonds are exactly what oxygen attacks. Sesame gets away with it because of sesamin and sesamolin, two lignans that act as built-in antioxidants and are found in meaningful quantity almost nowhere else. It is the reason a jar of tahini keeps for months at room temperature while a jar of ground walnuts does not, and the reason sesame oil was a practical trade good in the Bronze Age.
Figures are approximate, per 100 g, drawn from USDA FoodData Central (“Seeds, from raw and stone ground kernels, tahini, sesame butter” and “Seeds, sesame seeds, whole, dried”). USDA lists several tahini entries covering roasted and unroasted, hulled and unhulled, and energy across them ranges from roughly 573 to 607 kcal. Real products vary; read the pack in front of you.
04Process
Four decisions
Tahini has one ingredient, so there is nothing to hide behind. Everything that makes a jar good or bad happens in four steps between the field and the mill.
Approximate composition of finished tahini, by weight.
Sesame kernel
100
Oil released
~48
Protein
~18
Carbohydrate
~26
Fibre
~9
Salt, if any
0–1
Anything else
0
01
Hull the seed
Soak, abrade, then float off the husk
Seeds are softened in water, the hull is loosened mechanically, and the two are separated — traditionally in brine, where the kernels sink and the husks rise. Do it badly and hull fragments carry bitterness and grit all the way into the jar.
02
Roast to the edge
Typically 120–180 °C
The single largest flavour lever, and the least forgiving. Under-roasted sesame tastes flat and pasty. A few degrees or a few minutes too far and the lignans and sugars scorch into a bitterness no amount of lemon will cover. Good producers roast to a target colour, not a target clock.
03
Grind cool and fine
Target particle size ~20–40 µm
Stone mills in several passes, kept below roughly 60 °C. Heat from grinding drives off aroma and darkens the paste, so throughput is traded against flavour. Smoothness is a particle-size problem: below about 30 µm the tongue stops registering individual particles and the paste reads as liquid.
04
Expect it to separate
A suspension, not an emulsion
Tahini is solid sesame particles suspended in sesame oil, with no water and nothing holding the two together. Separation is gravity doing its job, not a fault or a sign of age — a jar with a clean oil layer on top has simply been left alone. Stir it back through and it is exactly what it was.
05Sources
Where the seed comes from
Tahini is judged first on its seed and second on its roast. Unlike hummus, the arguments here are about agriculture rather than technique — and the most prized seed is grown a long way from where the paste is most eaten.
ኢትዮጵያ
Humera
The benchmark
From the Ethiopian lowlands near the Eritrean border. Large, pale, notably sweet and low in bitterness, and the seed most Levantine producers will name if you ask what they would use given a free choice.
السودان
Sudan
Rich and full
Long one of the largest exporters in the world. Slightly deeper in flavour than Humera and widely used where a fuller, rounder paste is wanted.
نابلس
Nablus
The mill town
Not a seed but a reputation: the Palestinian city whose stone mills have been the reference point for tahini and halva for centuries. Traditionally pale, very smooth, and roasted lightly.
لبنان
Lebanon
Light and pourable
Typically thinner and paler, roasted conservatively so the sesame stays sweet. The style built for whisking into sauces rather than eating from the spoon.
ταχίνι
Greece & Cyprus
Often unhulled
Frequently darker and made from whole seed, sold as a spread in its own right and eaten with honey or carob syrup rather than treated as a cooking ingredient.
練り胡麻
Japan
Deeply roasted
Neri goma, in white and black. Roasted far harder than any Levantine style, giving an intense, almost smoky paste used in dressings and sauces where the sesame is meant to dominate.
芝麻酱
China
Dark and toasted
Heavily toasted and pronounced, closer in character to the Japanese style than the Levantine one. Central to sesame noodle sauces and hotpot dipping sauces.
06Presented by
MegaGreen
Delivered by MegaGreen — a leading European tahini manufacturer.
MegaGreen manufactures chilled Mediterranean food — tahini, hummus, salads and dips — as both a branded producer and a private-label partner for retail, distribution and food service across Europe. Tahini is milled in house rather than bought in, which is why this reference is published with their support.
In-house
Tahini production
2020
Producing since
200+
Recipes across hummus, salads & dips
1,350 m²
Production facility, Romania
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