Heard of the caviar bump craze? Astrea Caviar co-owner claims credit for viral food sensation

Have you heard of the caviar bump?

The decadent food sensation went viral last holiday season. Images, reels, TikTok videos and The New York Times depicted people partying with flutes of Champagne, lapping up black beads of caviar off their clenched fists.

If you ask Eve Lin, co-owner of Pasadena-based Astrea Caviar, she created the craze.

“I think the caviar bump was started by Astrea,” says Lin.

The genesis began in September 2019, when Lin hosted an exclusive tasting at NEXUS club in New York. Guests took glamorous pictures and videos doing countless caviar bumps.

It was fun albeit a little frivolous. The images screamed it’s time to party!  Influencers shared their experience, then others reshared the posts. Soon it was everywhere on social media.

“Who doesn’t love a caviar bump?” says Lin with a laugh. The foodie riff of ingesting a party drug took off.

“Now, it’s the trend,” she says. “I thought, ‘oh my gosh, I started that.’”

Astrea caviar is served in Michelin-star restaurants such as Kato in downtown Los Angeles and Guy Savoy in Las Vegas.

While Astrea enjoys the glittery exposure, Lin admits that starting a caviar company in Pasadena was no easy feat. When Astrea Caviar launched in 2019, they had few clients.

“For the first two years, we only sold to friends,” she says. “And we really didn’t sell the quantity [we wanted].”

Then, the pandemic happened. Astrea’s potential clients, which were primarily restaurants, closed. At the time, caviar just wasn’t an essential pantry item.

“We thought the business would be over,” she says. “So we focused on e-commerce. But it’s not easy to sell caviar when you don’t have the brand recognition yet.”

But they persisted.

In 2021, chefs in Los Angeles began buying Astrea’s caviar. It’s gaining customers in L.A. and across the country. Lin says that Astrea’s footprint soon will extend beyond restaurants. A Champagne and caviar series at a tony West Hollywood hotel is slated for the summer.

We asked Lin about what makes Astrea caviar special and what’s the next big craze we need to know about now? (This interview is edited for brevity and clarity.)

How did you get your start?

I had no idea about caviar. I didn’t even know anyone in the food industry. My partner [Risa] said that it would be a very fun business. “Maybe it will cover all our food and wine,” she said. Risa already has a staff … so, I said, “let’s try, we have nothing to lose.”

Astrea is served in Michelin-star restaurants. How did you get chefs to notice your caviar? 

It was so hard. Especially in the beginning, we didn’t have customers. We knew all the chefs. We go and dine a lot. Bradon Hayato – he’s not my client, but he asked his dad to buy [caviar] from me. He was helping me a lot. Also, Totoraku [L.A.’s secret Japanese beef restaurant, where you need chef Kaz Oyama’s permission to get a table]. Kaz Oyama-san was so helpful from the beginning.

I’m a customer at Guy Savoy in Vegas. I love to dine there because they have a great wine list. I met the wine director and we struck up a relationship. He introduced me to the executive chef in Vegas. Last December, Guy Savoy was in Vegas. He carried my caviar tin and took pictures eating my caviar. We’re lucky that we have a lot of clients that support us because we don’t have a lot of advertising.

And [Michelin-lauded] Kato was one of my early customers.

Speaking of Kato, the chef features your caviar for celebratory dinners on New Year’s Eve and gives Astrea shoutouts on the restaurant’s Instagram. How did you develop this partnership?

When I met Jon [Yao], it was 2020. I had a meeting with him in his old location. He said, “You’re Taiwanese and I’m Taiwanese so we should help each other.” Of course, he didn’t order right away. Beginning of 2021, that’s when it happened. It started opening the doors. And now a lot of people asked us about wholesale inquiries.

What exactly makes Astrea caviar special?

We’re specializing in all sturgeon. The sturgeon is from 18 to 25 years old. Usually the caviar we have is [harvested from] a 20-year-old sturgeon, which makes our caviar quality better.

Also we love wine so we specialize in aged caviar. We age the caviar one to four months to create more umami and a compressed texture.

What’s the next hot caviar craze?

Caviar cars at private events and weddings. My new project is to be a part of incredible celebrations. For weddings, they can rent a caviar car. We can make something fun. Serve ice cream [cones topped with] caviar, fried chicken with caviar or caviar bumps. We’re still working on it. But we already have some customers.