Oh I've gotten some from places before, I just don't live super close to any. But I figured the next step is to ask for their source if posting here doesn't work out. They did tell me they get it from sadaf, so I ordered the cheapest, darkest looking one sadaf had on amazon. Its funny, when I first asked them they brought out a small prepackaged container of red sadaf sumac, and I was like, no can I have whatever this is and pointed to the shaker on the table. So they broke me off some grams from the brown head stash.

It could just be a different type of sumac. It has a different taste. I posted here cuz I was hoping someone would be like, oh they actually use turkish sumac or some such.