California
Hog Island Sweetwater
Hog Island Oyster Company was founded on California’s Tomales Bay by three marine biologists in 1982. They now raise three different oysters on 160 leased acres in the bay, all in rack-and-bag systems. The Sweetwater is their Pacific oyster and their most popular. It is indeed deliciously sweet, pleasantly briny, black shelled, and always beautifully shaped, thanks to regular tumbling that keeps it from reaching harvest size until at least two years of age. Hog Island is the only company I know that holds its oysters in a tank after harvest, where they are purified with saltwater that has been sterilized with ultraviolet light. Hog Island also grows Kumamotos (supersweet and fruity), and Virginicas (more mineral).
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