This story is part of “Cultivating the Coast,” a special report that explores Harpswell’s rapidly growing aquaculture industry.
Sweet, salty, buttery, briny, savory, creamy, earthy, vegetal. There’s an oyster flavor for practically every palate. From Casco Bay to the New Meadows River, Harpswell boasts a wide variety of microclimates, with each individual ecosystem imprinting itself on the oysters grown there.
Jordan Kramer, president of the New Meadows River Shellfish Co-op, which includes two Harpswell oyster farms among its 10 members, said oysters grown a quarter-mile apart can taste and look entirely different.
“A New Meadows oyster is a little bit more savory, a little bit less saline and a little bit more sweet,” he said. “It’s just the ‘je ne sais quoi’ — the magic of the spot.”
Peter Rand, of Dingley Cove Oysters, owns one of the co-op’s two farms in Harpswell waters. He grows oysters near the mouth of the river, where the salinity is slightly higher, resulting in oysters he describes as “briny with a sweet finish and a nice texture.”
The amount of algae and phytoplankton present in a body of water, the salinity, the rocks or mud on the bottom, the runoff from the surrounding land, the trees and grasses on the shore — all these variables add complexity to how an oyster tastes.
Some oysters are grown on the bottom, their shells darker, their flavor deeper and earthier. Most are grown in baskets floating on the surface, where the waves wash and tumble them, infusing their shells with a briny liquor.
Oysters grown on shoals, where the water is shallower and richer in algae, often taste buttery. Those grown in colder water are sweeter.
Love Point Oysters co-owners Cameron Barner and Ben Hamilton start their oyster seed in a nursery near the Harraseeket River in Freeport, then grow the oysters to size on a 4-acre lease in Harpswell, off Upper Goose Island in Casco Bay.
Barner said the oysters spend close to a full season in the Harpswell location so they can absorb the flavor of the ocean. He describes Love Point’s oysters as “clean, crisp and minerally.”
Oyster aficionados sometimes talk about “merroir,” an adaptation of the wine term “terroir” that refers to the unique environmental factors that dictate flavor, texture and appearance. These factors include not only location and climate, but also cultivation and harvesting practices.
Barner and Hamilton religiously flip their oyster cages to prevent biofouling and expose the oysters to air. That exposure builds the oysters’ adductor muscles as they protectively seal themselves closed. Barner said larger adductor muscles can give an oyster a more scallop-like sweetness and texture.
Brendan Murray is the shellfish buyer at Eventide Oyster Co., a well-known oyster bar with locations in Portland and Boston. He’s also a fan of Harpswell oysters.
“They just have a really delicious flavor,” he said. “It seems to me that oysters that have a lot of healthy ecosystems around them just taste better.”
He appreciates the consistency of meat and shells and what he calls “the impeccable quality” of his favorite Harpswell growers.
“We’re shucking near 3,000 a day, so we need to have oysters that are going to be consistent,” he said.
Farms such as Love Point and Whiskey Stones Oysters, off Orr’s Island, combine a “classic teardrop shape” and ideal size to “just kind of nail that consistent ‘perfect’ oyster pretty much all the time,” Murray said.
While many new growers have discovered the oyster-friendly characteristics of Harpswell’s bays and inlets, Ken Beebe has been cultivating oysters for his Hog Cove Oyster Co. since the 1970s. He hauled in his last basket in June.
“I live on one of the best spots in the whole state of Maine to raise oysters,” he said about his aquaculture lease on Mill Pond in Basin Cove. Beebe credits the 9-foot dam that controls the rush of cold seawater into the pond with creating an ecosystem rich with plankton and algae.
His oysters grow large and deep-cupped, sometimes as big as his hand. He’s proud of the product he delivers, of the meaty texture and the salty, buttery flavor that retains its cold-water sweetness.
Whiskey Stones Oysters farmer Darcie Couture started growing oysters in Harpswell Sound, just off the Orr’s Island Bridge, as a hobby, but eventually sold her product as far south as the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island.
Couture credits the singular quality of Maine’s “cool, pristine, beautiful, briny waters” for the demand.
She keeps her oysters in those waters through three winters, eschewing mechanical tumblers and sorters, harvesting by hand and allowing nature to shape the shells. The result is an oyster with a wide, fluted shell; a firm, meaty texture; and a nuanced flavor profile.
She still gets calls from those New York restaurants, but these days she prefers to stay local, selling direct to restaurants in Harpswell, Brunswick and Portland.
While there are more established oyster regions in Maine, Harpswell is building a reputation for both quality and variety.
Love Point’s oysters were named Oyster of the Year at the Maine Oyster Festival in June. The New Meadows oyster growers are developing a collective brand. And Whiskey Stone’s oysters regularly sell out at events and festivals.
“We have the most coastline of any town in the state of Maine and the most variable, unique water bodies to grow oysters in, so whatever your bent is, (whatever) you prefer, you’re going to find it in Harpswell,” Couture said.
This story is part of “Cultivating the Coast,” a special report that explores Harpswell’s rapidly growing aquaculture industry.
