Succinic acid.

Did you know that succinic acid is named after amber?

Succinic comes from succinum, Latin for “amber”. For centuries it was obtained by distilling that fossil resin, which earned it its old nickname: “spirit of amber”. A raw material we now associate with cosmetics or industry began its story coming out of a piece of resin 40 million years old.

Three facts about it that hardly anyone knows:

Your body is making it right now. It is not a “lab” compound: succinic acid is a link in the Krebs cycle, the pathway every one of your cells uses to produce energy. You carry it inside you as you read this.

It is behind the taste of seafood. It is one of the compounds responsible for the savory taste —umami— of clams, mussels and also Japanese sake. That hint that “tastes of the sea” has, in part, a chemical name.

It occurs naturally. Wine, rhubarb, broccoli and unripe fruit all contain it naturally. Nobody had to invent it; we had to learn how to isolate it.

From fossil resin to a plate of clams, by way of your mitochondria: one compound links things that seem to have nothing in common. And that is the idea we like most about these raw materials —they are almost never just what their label says.

Because knowledge is part of the supply, too.