India has been renowned as Asia’s spice hub from the ancient times. Indian spices were the most sought after and were valuable even more than gold, as they were more difficult to procure. Thus, India exercised total monopoly over spices in the ancient period.
India’s trade in spices is coloured with a larger-than -life succession of exploration and destruction of lands, wars waged, signed and broken treaties, and kingdoms built and brought down.
Even now, the allure of Indian spices remains intact, making India the largest producer of spices in the world.
Kerala became a hotbed of many exotic spices and rose to fame as the “Spice garden of India”, drawing traders from different parts of the world. In fact, the booming spice trade between Kerala and the rest of the world became one of the predominant drivers of world economy from as early as 3000 B.C. At present, Kerala is a major contributor to international spice trade.
