A quiet jar of juniper berries

For braised pork I tipped juniper from the packet — a dusty blue bloom on the fingers and a smell of pine. The packet stayed by the burner: by morning the berries already looked dull, like paper. I tip them into a dry jar, click the lid, and set it on a cool cupboard shelf — not above the kettle and not by the oven.

A quiet jar of juniper berries. Allspice is round Jamaican berries for stew; cloves are sharp buds; star anise is stars; cardamom is green pods for tea. Here dusty juniper goes into meat and cabbage: whole berries, not a ground “hunter’s mix” from the rack.

A crushed or damp berry I bin — it does not go into the jar. Into the pot I put two or three whole and let them give their smell themselves; I don’t start crushing ahead. This note is only the open packet already at ours.

I don’t need flat juniper that smells of cardboard. I need a jar from which a braise smells of pine again. In your kitchen does juniper live under a lid in the cool — or does the packet sit by the hob?