caviar. The Siberian variety with black beads is similar to sevruga and is popular because of its reduced (five years) harvest period, but it has a higher brine content than other kinds. The Chinese Kaluga hybrid varies in colour from dark grey to light golden green and is a close cousin of beluga caviar. Quality factors and cost An expensive caviar example at sold for £20,000 (then US$34,500) is the Iranian 'Almas' product (from , "diamond") produced from the eggs of a rare albino sturgeon between 60 and 100 years old from the southern Caspian Sea. Wild beluga sturgeon caviar from the Caspian Sea was priced in 2012 at $16,000 per . Cheaper alternatives have been developed from the roe of whitefish and the North Atlantic salmon. Conventional sturgeon caviar was priced in 2014 at about $105 per and from albino sturgeon up to $800 per ounce. Other quality factors are texture – with firmness having higher quality value – flavour qualities, such as creaminess, butter taste, and brine or mild fish finish, and whether the caviar was taken from the fish by massage (higher value) rather than by killing it. Industry China China has emerged as the leading producer, accounting for 60% of the world's caviar production. The largest caviar company in the world is the Chinese brand Kaluga Queen, which cultivates sturgeon at Qiandao Lake in Zhejiang. Israel Kibbutz Dan in Israel produces four tons of caviar a year. The farm is fed by the Dan River, a tributary of the Jordan River. Italy Cristoforo da Messisbugo in his book Libro novo nel qual si insegna a far d'ogni sorte di vivanda, Venice, 1564, at page 110, gave the first recorded recipe in Italy about extraction of the eggs from the roe and caviar preparation "to be consumed fresh or to preserve". The writer and voyager Jérôme Lalande in his book "Voyage en Italie", Paris, 1771, vol. 8, page 269, noted that many sturgeon were caught in the Po delta area in the territory of Ferrara. In 1753 a diplomatic war broke out between the Papal States, governing the Ferrara territory, and the Venetian Republic about sturgeon fishing rights in the Po River, the border between the two states. From about 1920 and until 1942, there was a shop in Ferrara, named "Nuta" from the nickname of the owner Benvenuta Ascoli, that processed all the sturgeons caught in