Notes from the root.

Lakadong is not a brand name. It is a place — a cluster of villages in the West Jaintia Hills where Pnar farmers have grown this cultivar for generations.

A note: we describe Lakadong by what it is — colour, aroma, curcumin — not by what it cures. Indian kitchens have used turmeric for generations. That is claim enough.

Piper nigrum is a vine. It climbs areca, jackfruit and silver oak on the Malabar Coast, and has done for two thousand years. Berries take eight to nine months to mature — and one spike carries several stages of ripeness at once.

Tellicherry became a grading word because the region let berries hang longer, picked them later, and sorted them harder than other ports. A denser, heavier berry carries more piperine and more volatile oil — the slow warmth good pepper is remembered for.

A note: size on its own is not quality. We grade by sieve and by aroma — a bold berry that has lost its perfume is no better than a small one.

The karewas of Pampore are raised plateaus of clay and gravel outside Srinagar — poor soil, cold nights, a short autumn. Crocus sativus does not mind. It flowers for three weeks, and for those three weeks the fields are picked entirely by hand.

Kashmiri saffron received its Geographical Indication in 2020, covering the Pampore, Budgam, Kishtwar and Srinagar belt. The tag exists because the market has a long history of adulteration — dyed maize silk, safflower, coloured thread sold by the gram. An address is the simplest defence a buyer has.

A note: we describe saffron by colour, aroma and grade — not by what it treats. Kashmiri kitchens have used it in pulao, kahwa and kheer for centuries. That is claim enough.

Black cardamom is the most misunderstood spice in the Indian pantry, because it shares a name with something it is not.

Swapping one for the other is not a variation. It is a mistake.

Hee Gaon, 1982. The late Sukh Ram Subba, a grower in this West Sikkim village, spotted one clump behaving differently — bigger capsules, better yield, shrugging off disease. He raised saplings and pressed his neighbours to plant it. By 1985 the valley had taken it up. The name comes from a Limboo word for drooping leaves.

The thin husk does two things: Seremna cures faster than other large cardamoms, and the calyx — the tail that elsewhere must be trimmed with scissors — falls away by itself. Bigger dried capsules, more seed, no trimming. That is what earns the price, and why the growers' cooperative applied for a Geographical Indication in the name of the village rather than the state.

A note: black cardamom should smell of woodsmoke before you open it. If a pod smells of nothing through the shell, it has been sitting somewhere warm for too long.

Most cinnamon is not cinnamon. The hard, dark-red sticks sold as dalchini in most Indian shops are cassia. Ceylon cinnamon is a different tree.

Grade is thickness. Ceylon is sorted Alba, Continental, Mexican, Hamburg — finest to coarsest. Alba takes the innermost bark of young shoots, cut to a uniform five inches, and fetches about twice the coarser grades. A peeler who tears the bark downgrades it in a second.

Around Galle and Matara the work is still manual: branches soaked to soften the bark, the rough outer layer scraped away, the inner bark lifted off in sheets by a peeler judging thickness against the bones of their own fingers. The craft passes down within the Salagama and Hakuru communities, and experienced peelers are becoming scarce.

A note: Ceylon cinnamon is the one spice in our catalogue that is not Indian. We say so plainly on the pack. An honest address is worth more than a convenient one.

Coriander is the quiet backbone of Indian cooking — the bulk of most masalas, carrying other spices rather than announcing itself.

Gujarat is India's largest coriander-growing state, and Saurashtra grows it on black cotton soil under a dry winter — sown after the monsoon drains, cut in February and March. Once the husk splits the citrus note starts leaving, and no amount of careful storage brings it back.

A note: buy coriander whole and grind what you need. It is the single change that will improve more of your cooking than any other spice upgrade.

Fennel is the one spice in an Indian household that gets eaten on its own. The bowl by the door after dinner, the sugar-coated version at a wedding, the handful pressed on you by a relative — saunf occupies a social role most spices never get near.

Which makes the quality gap unusually visible. Cut green and sun-dried, the seed holds its colour and its anethole. Cut late or force-dried, and it browns.

Ours comes from Unjha, in Mehsana district of North Gujarat — one of the largest spice trading centres in Asia, and the town the Indian fennel trade runs through. Unjha fennel, variyali in Gujarati, has its own Geographical Indication application, filed in June 2024 by the town's Agricultural Produce Market Committee and advertised as accepted in November 2025.

Parrot grade is not a botanical distinction. It is a grader with a good eye and a strict sieve.

A note: if fennel is the thing you reach for after dinner, buy it in small quantities and often. Colour tells you more than any date printed on a pack.

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice on earth after saffron, and the reason is labour rather than rarity. The vine grows readily enough. It is everything after the flower that costs.

The vine grows readily enough. It is everything after the flower that costs.

Length is the grading standard, and 18 centimetres and over is the premium tier — longer pods generally mean fuller, oilier, better-cured beans.

A note: a good bean should be supple enough to wrap around a finger without snapping. Brittle vanilla has been over-dried, and no amount of soaking brings it back.