cardamom

Popularly known as ‘Queen of Spices’ as opposed to Black Pepper hailed as ‘King of Spice’, Cardamom, sometimes spelt as cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera Elettaria and Amomum in the family Zingiberaceae . Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. The cardamom plant is a perennial herbaceous plant with a pseudostem and thick irregular shaped rhizomes. Dried fruit or cardamom pod is traded as a spice.

Cardamom pods are spindle-shaped and have a triangular cross-section. The pods contain a number of seeds, which are small and black, while the pods differ in colour and size by species. Cardamom is generally available in the form of whole fruit as a primary product, in-ground form as secondary processed products and also in the form of extractions of oil and oleoresin as value-added products. Cardamom lands are generally termed as spice forests. Sri Lankan Cardamom suppliers export light green cardamom variety (Elettaria cardamomom), which is one of the most expensive spices by weight.

Due to the unique flavour of green cardamom cultivated in Sri Lanka, formed by the country’s unique terroir, green cardamom produced in Sri Lanka is known as Ceylon Cardamom.

Ceylon Cardamom is available in various forms in the global market;