The cardamom plantations I visited are located on the outskirts of Kumily, Kerala, India. Selected fresh cardamom is brought here, which can be purchased in our store in the section Spices, as well as get acquainted with its properties and use.
According to my guide, cardamom grows only in southern India and only at a certain altitude where the temperature varies from 25 to 35 degrees Celsius throughout the year.
Cardamom is a shrub up to 4 m tall of the Ginger family.
The first harvest from the shrub is obtained 2 years after its planting. But an adult bush bears fruit every 2 months.
Why is cardamom so expensive if it is harvested 6 times a year?
It turns out that cardamom is constantly treated with pesticides, which greatly increases its price.
The seeds that are inside the fruit (boxes), as well as the stem inside, have a sweet taste that attracts various pests. In particular, cockroaches are always happy to feast on sweet cardamom seeds. And some cunning bugs attack the stems and gnaw them from the inside, after which the stem breaks and dies.
That is why plantations are regularly treated with pesticides that protect plants from pests.
Only 10% of farmers do not use pesticides, but their goods are worth much more expensive because most of the crop is attacked by insects.
The cardamom bush consists of 2 types of stems: a stem with leaves and a stem that bears fruit. Stems with leaves grow upwards, and stems with fruits are located at the base of the bush, they are short and sometimes weave along the ground.
Cardamom bushes produce large or small fruits. Both types are equally aromatic and useful.
Women harvest. Is it not because virgins … at dawn … etc. And because the salary of women is 2 times lower than that of men who perform the same work, and the speed of work is 2 times higher… This is how injustice is happening
Cardamom blooms with delicate little flowers that vaguely resemble an orchid
Those fruits with black seeds inside are considered ripe. Cardamom is dried only in special dryers, and not in the sun, as some sources write. When drying in the sun, there is a high probability that some seeds will remain wet, as a result of which the entire package (be it 100 grams or a bag) will be lost, and secondly, when drying in the sun, the boxes will lose their color.
