Unlike white sugar and some brown sugars (that are often just white sugar coloured with molasses) Plantation Reserve Sugar is milled rather than refined, making it less processed. It is thus a coarser, lighter sugar with a natural taste and aroma that is, the West Indies Sugar & Trading Company insists, ‘a cut above the rest’.
Plantation Reserve is made using only selected can cut at the height of the season from the old plantations of barbados. They wait until the cane is at its best before cutting during a two-week period of the harvest season. Taking it too early and the cane is not ripe enough, too late and tropical rians can destroy the crop. Less than one in one hundred canes make the grade.
Plantation Reserve Sugar is available from Waitrose, Tescos, Booths, Selfridges and Merchant Gourmet for about £2.49 for 500g. (For the latter I would link to direct but appear to be on a banned list of some description; their loss)