Spice can transform food into a sensory symphony when used wisely—but when used incorrectly, it can lead to travesties such as Wasabi Toast Crunch and spearmint beer. Keep the right ingredients in arm's reach with today's Groupon: for $7, you get $15 worth of spices, salts, and teas at the Spice & Tea Exchange in downtown Portland. Packaged by the ounce, Spice & Tea Exchange hand-mixes spices from around the world to create their unique blends and rubs. Banish blandness from any meal with a wide variety of spices ($0.99+ per ounce), more than 60 custom blends and rubs ($4.29+ per ounce), and a ton of salts, peppers, and chili powders ($0.49+ per ounce). Office workers can wean themselves off the teats of the break room's coffee-cow with dozens of loose-leaf teas ($4.89 per ounce) sweetened with 12 flavor-infused sugars ($4.89 per ounce), including blueberry sugar, spicy habanero sugar, and espresso sugar. The Spice & Tea Exchange's huge variety of flavors make it easy to fulfill long-held cooking fantasies, be it a robust hickory-flavored manticore or topping a freshly grilled cheeseburger with unicorn-radish.

Reviews

Five Yelpers give The Spice and Tea Exchange an average of four stars, and nearly 300 Facebookers are fans:

• What a great little shop! We stopped here on the Portland Walking Epicurean Tour and it was great tasting all the different salts. − Sarah W., Yelp
• Loved this shop because they have great spices and a nice staff. A great place to buy gifts! − ellen r., Yelp