Reports of its addictiveness have come all the way from the other side of the globe - people who used up the stash they got from their friends or relatives on the Island as a gift, and who need a refill, fast.

They wrote to the address on the label, but for years there was no reply - until about three months ago. The response was blissful - an apology jar and the link to a newly launched Web site with ordering information and answers to all of their wonderings about that delectable substance they pinched and sprinkled on just about anything edible.

Despite misgivings, the woman behind By the Sea Salt, Cherrilla Brown, agreed to an interview one afternoon this week, in the neutral territory of the Black Dog Café, where she could suss out her interviewer before granting access to the secret salt mine in West Tisbury.

What started as a small-time venture at the farmers' market 13 years ago for a single mother to make some extra money soon grew into a business that stocks more than a dozen Island stores, a number of off-Island restaurants and countless homes around the world.

And after overcoming some growing pains, By the Sea Salt is expanding once again. There are two new employees, a new seasoned salt with a kick called José Can You Sea? and ambitious plans to take over the world. Next stop: Oprah.

But first, the back story of By the Sea Salt, which begins with four women named Cherrilla.

"My mother used to make it," Ms. Brown, 52, began. "My mother's name was Cherilla Brown too. She had a herbs and antiques store." The elder Cherrilla grew her own herbs and mixed the spices with her mother - also named Cherrilla - in her little shop called Sara Putnam's in Riverton, Conn.

"She sold it in plastic bags with no labels and called it herb salt or something like that," Ms. Brown said, dissolving into characteristic giggles behind the frames of her pink glasses. "There were people who liked it a lot, but she didn't make a big thing of it.

"Then I became a single mom and realized I was going to have to make more money than I was making just for myself," she continued. She named her daughter Cherrilla Brown; the now-13-year-old goes by Coco. "I'd always done creative things. I made fairy dresses and sold them in New York. I designed cases for musical instruments. I thought, I'm creative, I can come up with something. I thought, I'll sell something at the farmers' market."

So she got some kosher salt and some herbs and a friend, dug up her mother's recipe and made it her own.

"I changed it a little bit. She had a way of making it that she liked better," Ms. Brown said.

The ingredients on the label list kosher salt, basil, parsley, garlic and onion - but the recipe is not so simple, she warns.

"People have bought the ingredients, but they don't get it right," she said.

Only one person has had the audacity to ask for the recipe. She didn't give it to them, but she did laugh pretty hard.

"I got into the farmers' market with this friend of mine, Lizzie McGhee," she continued. "We made the labels together. Every label we would stamp with our stamps."

The women made the stamps out of erasers. Today, the labels look similar to the ones then, except the E's are no longer backwards.

They started going to the West Tisbury farmers' market every Saturday.

"If I sold 12, I thought, Yee-haw! This is a good day," she said.

Last year, Ms. Brown sold 5,000 jars - and the numbers are growing. The 2.4-ounce hand-filled glass jars of By the Sea Salt cost $4.50 apiece - about the same as they cost back in the 1990s.

"I'm very slow in raising my price or figuring out my price," she said.

Soon after opening the table at the market, stores began approaching her, asking if they could sell her By the Sea Salt. It took her about a year to get her act together to distribute them, with everything else that was on her plate at the time, she recalled.

"Morning Glory was the first, and they have been dynamite. I think they sell almost a case a day - 24," Ms. Brown said, noting that about 13 stores carry her salt now, including Alley's General Store, where she has worked full-time for six years, on top of the salt business, quilt-making (the Allen Farm store sells her quilts) and raising her daughter. "I'll be there 'til I'm a little old lady - unless my salt gets really big," she added.

There are also off-Island restaurants that buy her salt - and of course there are individuals around the world who discovered the salt through people who bought it for them on the Island.

There's a corporation in California that keeps jars of By the Sea Salt on the tables in their corporate dining room. There's a 13-year-old girl who comes to the Island and buys two jars - one to keep in her purse and another to hide in her house. Her family goes through the salt so fast, she must protect her own stash. There's a couple in Virginia that thinks By the Sea should team up with the George Foreman grill people, since those are the only two things they need to cook good food.

"I love the stories. I think I love that as much as anything," Ms. Brown said. "At Cronig's, they told me last year about a woman who came to the Island just to get her salt."

But after a while, the creative part of the project - creating the recipe, designing the labels - felt over, Ms. Brown said.

"I realized I wanted to expand and I really didn't want to do it myself. I was waiting. Then I became friends with Leslei and Will and they said, ‘I'll give you a hand'" she said. West Tisbury and Cuttyhunk residents Leslei and William Monast started working with her this spring. In the summertime, the Monasts live on Cuttyhunk, where Mrs. Monast manages rentals and her husband is a builder. Mrs. Monast has also been Gosnold's tax collector for 17 years.

"I love it now that I have people working with me. It's so much more fun," she said. "It felt right. It felt like a good fit - people I could have fun with - not business people.

"I would never have been able to do the Web site without them," she continued. "They have all the skills I don't. Will makes me laugh. His writing makes me laugh. He wrote the story on the Web site. Leslei is far more organized than I am. And they both can spell."

When the Web site finally launched in May, with the technical help of Alan J. Mahoney at MV Tech, Inc., Ms. Brown took the return addresses from about 150 letters that she had never replied to, and sent out a mailing. She sent information about the Web site, bytheseasalt.com, and a jar of salt.

Now that she's on the Web, customers can contact her easily via e-mail.

"It's fun to have people getting in touch with you and to hear their stories. They're not being polite and saying, ‘This is nice,' they're saying, ‘I need it!'"

With the extra help, she was also able to release a spicier seasoned salt a couple of months ago called José Can You Sea? salt made from kosher salt, basil, parsley, garlic, black pepper, cayenne, lemon peel and citric acid.

"That was in the making for about seven years," Ms. Brown said. "I had fooled around with the recipe for a while, then I wrote it in a sketch pad and I couldn't find the sketch pad."

Like the original recipe, José Can You Sea can be used on just about everything.

"I've never tried it, but I'll bet it would be great on the edge of a Bloody Mary glass," she said. "It's not hot-hot. It's very warm. It has citric. Of course, they're both addictive." The jar is a bit harder to fill, because the cayenne and citric acid get in their noses, Ms. Brown said.

People often ask her if she grows her own herbs, like her mother did, but Ms. Brown has not found that to be practical. People have also asked her whether she gathers her own salt from sea water. She does not, and finds this hysterical.

"Then I have to answer with a straight face," she said. "You have to be nice!"

In the end, the booming business has been a pleasant surprise for the reluctant businesswoman.

"I just thought I'd make a little extra money every Saturday to support Coco and I," she said. "I never thought I'd have people working for me. I don't think I ever thought I'd have so much fun doing it."