The Spice Trader vs. the Tariffs

ChinaTalk’s people-suing-the-US-government-over-tariffs series continues. Last time we brought you the grumpy toymaker . Today we have Ethan Frisch, longtime friend of ChinaTalk and co-founder of Burlap & Barrel , finest purveyor of spices in the land. Co-hosting, as always, is Peter Harrell . We discuss: How an aid worker hauling wild cumin out of Afghanistan in duffel bags built a single-origin spice company, and why Burlap & Barrel chooses farmer-led pricing. What Trump’s tariffs cost small businesses and why they’re suing the government, while the large ones sit on the sidelines. The legal case against Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, arguing against executive overreach. Whether forced labor is a real justification or a pretext for recreating the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down, and how long the appeals will run. Plus, the most underappreciated spices, the virtues of a pre-capitalist trading model, and a call to buy small ! Burlap & Barrel promo code: CHINATALK for a free jar of your choice on a first-time order over $15. Listen now on your favorite podcast app . Where the Tariff Litigation Stands Jordan Schneider: Peter, catch us up from where we left off with the Learning Resources CEO. What have the developments been? Peter Harrell: So why are we talking about tariffs again? Didn’t the Supreme Court rule in February that the tariffs were illegal, so they just went away? That’s what most people would assume. But that is not what happened. After the Supreme Court ruled in February, in a case brought by Learning Resources, an educational toy company, that Trump’s first round of tariffs — imposed last year under IEEPA, an emergency powers statute — were illegal, the administration did not give up on tariffs. Instead, they undertook a two-part set of fallback tariffs. The first were in place for 150 days under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 . Those are now expired, but still being litigated. The tariffs in place today — if you’re importing from Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, or the European Union — are under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. In July, the US Trade Representative, pursuant to an investigation into alleged unfair trade practices related to forced labor by almost all of America’s trading partners, imposed 10% or 12.5% tariffs on most US imports. Those tariffs are being challenged in court by several groups of plaintiffs, but front and center is Ethan and his company, Burlap & Barrel. They argue that the Section 301 tariffs did not follow the procedures required by the statute, and that even if they did, they are too broad to be lawful. There was a trial-level hearing yesterday in New York before the Court of International Trade. Both sides faced tough questioning, but the government in particular faced tough questions about whether Section 301 actually authorizes tariffs of this sweeping scope. Ethan Frisch: We are also a plaintiff in the 122 suit, so this is our second time suing the government. Jordan Schneider: You just can’t get enough. Ethan Frisch: There’s a lot of money owed back to companies including mine, and it’s very suspicious that the second tariff started the same day the 122 tariff ended. There’s a lot of funny business around this. Burlap & Barrel’s Origin Story Jordan Schneider: Take us all the way back to the global war on terror. How did your time in Afghanistan start you down this road? Ethan Frisch: My journey to the courtroom started in 2008. I had been a line cook and a pastry chef in New York City, then went to grad school to become an aid worker in international development, and wound up in Afghanistan. I lived there for over two years, working mostly for the Aga Khan Foundation on infrastructure projects — mostly school construction in very remote, rural, mountainous areas across the northeast of the country. That part of the country happens to be known for its wild cumin. Having worked in restaurants, going to little markets and meeting people as I traveled around northern Afghanistan, I was blown away by the flavor and quality of this cumin and started bringing it home. Not as a business initially, just because I loved it. I had worked at a high-end Indian restaurant in New York and thought I knew my way around the spice cabinet. It turned out there were so many more interesting spices around the world that had never made their way to the US market. I started bringing cumin home in duffel bags and sharing it with friends in the restaurant industry, realized people might actually pay for something like this, and that there might be other producers in other countries. We started the company in 2016. My co-founder Ori and I started it out of my one-bedroom apartment in Queens: no money, no experience, truly no idea what I was doing. Driving out to the airport at two in the morning to pick up air freight shipments, haggling with customs officers because I didn’t have any of the paperwork, slowly figuring things out. Peter Harrell: When did you pay your first tariff bill? Ethan Frisch: It was a while. Some spices have been tariffed for a long time, predating either Trump administration — garlic, for example. But most spices are duty-free, because you’re not competing with any domestic production. We’ve paid tariffs on garlic from Vietnam because there’s a garlic industry in California. Maybe 2019 we paid our first garlic tariff, on our first shipment of purple-stripe garlic powder from Vietnam. Generally, I was carrying things home. I did a lot of traveling in the early days with empty suitcases on the way there and full suitcases on the way home, and always declared everything, totally above board. Because spices are duty-free, I was waved through. That’s how I did my importing for at least the first year. Jordan Schneider: You show up at TSA with this purple dust and they’re like, okay, cool? Ethan Frisch: These were decent quantities. I would bring two huge empty duffel bags to bring home a hundred pounds of cardamom or a hundred pounds of nutmeg. In the early days it was often cheaper to buy a plane ticket than to ship those quantities. I’d show up, unzip my duffel at the counter, declare it, file a prior notice — there’s always a little paperwork. They were often very confused about what I was doing and why. Sometimes they’d open it up and look at it. Sometimes it was just, okay, fine. Jordan Schneider: Would they ever make you taste it? Ethan Frisch: No, they never made me taste it. It’s all legal. You can bring spices from all around the world; they’re not protected. My tip is to make sure the label says “spices” and not “seeds.” If it says seeds, you’re in a whole different category. A cumin seed is a seed, but it’s also a spice. Unlike meat or dairy or fresh fruit, you’re allowed to bring spices in. ChinaTalk is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. What Makes a Better Spice Jordan Schneider: Peter, as a home cook who’s been playing with Ethan’s stuff for the past few weeks, how different is it from what you get in a supermarket? Peter Harrell: Ethan brings in great spices. We’re really going to do product placement here: I have a whole set of Burlap & Barrel spices. Compared to the McCormick stuff you’d buy at your local supermarket, you get a fuller flavor. Sometimes the profile is different, but mostly it’s fuller. The stuff you typically buy tastes muted by comparison, whereas this has a lot more complexity and roundness. Ethan Frisch: You see this in produce. A waxy Red Delicious from the supermarket versus an orchard apple; there’s a huge range of quality. The same is absolutely true for spices, but nobody had invested in that as a business before. What we do is find farmers who are growing something different: a different species or variety, or something different in the agricultural process, often with a focus on soil health and biodiversity. You can taste that difference. Not to mention it’s a lot