Spice Plantation In Periyar

Spices have always been an important part of life in Kerala. Here the masters of ayruveda, the science of life, discovered the use of spices for medicinal purposes. Spices also play an important role in the Kerala cuisine, non-ayruvedic medicine and cosmetics. Periyar is, due to its location in the lower mountains around 1000 metres above sea level, blessed with numerous types of spices. Consequently, the spice plantation tour is in one of the most important activities outside the reserve that a visitor can engage in. It is an opportunity to see why the Kerala cuisine is so different from most of the other Indian cuisines. The tour gives you a chance to enjoy cardamom, pepper, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and many other varieties of spices and medicinal plants.

As you take a walk along the streets of Kumily or the winding pathways among the plantations, the thing that strikes you first is the lingering aroma in the air. The scent may be of cloves, nutmeg, pepper, cinnamon or cardamom and sometimes a fragrance that combines the scents of two or more spices.

One of the major spices produced in the area is cardamom. The variety, Cardamom Small, botanically known as Elettaria Cardamom, is the one that is mostly grown here. The thick shrub-like cardamom plant usually grows at an altitude of 600 to 1200 metres from mean sea level (msl). Kerala contributes about 70 percent of the national production of cardamom with the major chunk coming from the plantations of Kumily. The pepper plantations are something else that are worth seeing. The sunlight seeping through the shapely leaves of the pepper plants is an alluring sight.

There are many factors that make the plantation experience a memorable one. For some, it could be the unassuming beauty of the tiny flowers of the cardamom that grow at the base of the plant; for others, the tantalising aroma of cinnamon or cloves, and for some others, the cool breeze that lovingly strokes the green plantations and everything in it. It is a great feeling to get up at dawn in the lap of Nature, smelling the fresh, aromatic air - almost like waking up in a green paradise that is far removed from our flawed planet.