For anyone who has lost an evening to Sam's videos on TikTok or Facebook, you already know why I wanted her clays on my shelves. The clean snap of a black shard. The slow, damp crumble of a heart. The way she tells you exactly which hillside each one came out of. It's very hard to watch and not want to try it yourself.
So here's the bit I've been wanting to say properly for a while. Earthy Crunch UK is the exclusive European reseller for Taste Montana. If you're in the UK or anywhere else in Europe and you want her heart-shaped treats, her hand-foraged dirts or her clays, I'm the only place you'll get them.
You won't find them on Amazon. You won't find them on some random marketplace listing with a borrowed photo either.
And honestly, that's quite deliberate.
Why I only buy them straight from Sam
Taste Montana is Samantha Hokulani, and every clay and dirt in the range is foraged by her, by hand, across Montana. The Yellowstone region, the Missouri River Breaks, black shale formations, the odd rain-soaked bank she's gone back to in a storm on purpose. Nothing is bulk-bought from a quarry and rebranded.
That also means it's small batch and seasonal. When winter shuts off access to some of her spots, certain clays simply stop until spring. That isn't a marketing line about "limited editions", it's just what happens when one woman is digging it out of the ground herself.
Buying from one source means I know where every batch has come from: Sam to me, me to you. It crosses the Atlantic in batches, I repackage it at home, and some of the hearts only ever arrive in single figures. If something you saw in a video is sold out, that's why. I'd rather tell you that than pad the range out with lookalikes.
One thing I'll always be plain about. None of this is lab-certified. The Taste Montana range is community-tested and home-tested, which means it has been crunched by me and by people in the community, not run through a lab. You deserve to know that before you buy, not after.
The hearts everyone asks about
The hearts are what most of you message me about, so they go first. Each one is hand-pressed by Sam from her own clays and weighs up to about 60g. They keep the character of the clay they're made from, but the bite is softer than a raw chunk and they melt down rather than shatter. Most sit around a 2 on my crunch scale, which to me makes them the slow, sit-down-with-a-brew option rather than the big ASMR snap.
Montana Sunset Kisses. Two of her clays in one heart, Montana Red and Yellowstone pressed together. A smooth medium crunch (a 3, so a touch firmer than the others) that turns into a creamy earthy melt with little chalky crumbs left behind. The flavour is properly muddy: damp soil, rainwater minerals, a roasted-earth note and that petrichor smell you get when it first rains after a dry spell. If you can only pick one heart, I'd start here.
Ginger Snaps. Nothing to do with the biscuit, before anyone asks. This one is crunchy and crumbly, and it is uber damp. Think forest floor after a week of rain: wet soil, mud, deep earthiness. It's one of my personal favourites and usually one of the better-stocked hearts, which is a rare treat in itself.
Montana Smoke Kisses. Crumbly, with a light smokiness running through it and a slight natural sweetness that turns creamy as it breaks down. It's the gentlest of the lot and a good one if you're not sure how you feel about the heavier muddy profiles yet.
Yellow Panda Kisses. Creamy, lightly smoky, with faint petrol tones. If you already love Yellowstone or Montana Enchantress and that slightly oily mineral thing they do, this is the same family in heart form.
Garnet Kisses. Crumbly and very much soil-after-rain. Wet earth, pure mud dirt, strong petrichor. No subtlety here at all, which is exactly why some of you love it.
The raw clays and dirts
If the hearts are the slow option, the raw clays are where the texture range really opens up. Same forager, wildly different results depending on where she dug.
Montana Red. The bestseller, and for good reason. Irregular chunks and crumbs that give a gentle crunch and then melt away like chocolate. Rain-soaked topsoil, mineral-rich earth and a subtle petrol undertone underneath. It comes as Regular, which is freshly dug and slightly damp, or Extra Damp, which Sam gathered during a rainstorm and arrives wetter, clumpier and far muddier. Both are worth trying side by side at least once.
Yellowstone. Mustard-yellow chunks from around Yellowstone National Park. Soft, slightly sandy and creamy without any grit, with muddy topsoil, petrichor and a whisper of petrol on the finish. It's best kept a little damp, so it ships in a reusable plastic tub. I don't love that, given how hard I work to keep plastic out of everything else, but a dried-out Yellowstone isn't worth having.
Montana Midnight. You might know it by its old name, Montana Coal. It's a black shale clay, not actual coal, despite looking like you've raided a fireplace. Dense, matte, angular shards that snap cleanly with no dust or stickiness, then a slightly sour, zingy finish that ends on something close to lemon. Dampen it and it goes slushy.
Old Ferry Ember. Formerly Red Brick Dirt, from the Missouri River Breaks. This is the hard one: a 5 on my scale, all flakes and thin layered sheets in a deep ember red. Mind your fillings. For all that crunch, the flavour is surprisingly gentle, mild terracotta and sunbaked earth rather than heavy mud, and it softens into a smooth slush when damp. I've already written a whole post about why this one means so much to me, if you want the longer story.
Copper Hill. Sam describes this as breaking down almost like kinetic sand, and she's right. Damp-feeling, sandy and soft, with freshly dug muddy earth and the occasional random hit of gasoline. It's sold unsifted, so the odd root or stem is part of the deal.
Montana Enchantress. For the petrol lovers. Diesel, damp minerals and wet stone, with a light waxy crunch that melts down smooth. Pale grey through to charcoal, and genuinely unlike anything else I stock.
Where I'd start
If you've come here straight from one of her videos and don't know where to begin, pick one heart and one raw clay so you can feel the difference between the two. Montana Sunset Kisses and Montana Red is a good pairing, because the heart is literally made from the clay. Most of the raw clays also come in sample sizes, which is how most of you buy anyway.
I'd genuinely love to know which of Sam's videos sent you my way. Drop it in the comments or tag me, because I watch them too.
Ta x
Disclaimer
This is written for informational and hobbyist purposes. My products aren't certified food-grade and are sold for collection, crafting or sensory enjoyment. Any consumption is entirely a personal decision and entirely at your own risk. I don't promote ingestion and can't be held responsible for any adverse effects.
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