Whenever I am exploring something new, I try to learn as much as I can about it. I guess you could call this one of my superpowers; I can spend a long time down in the rabbit hole without pulling my head up for air. Sometimes I am a little afraid when I get bitten by the curiosity bug, because I know that once I give in to its temptations, everything is over and my mind is destined for a long and arduous journey.
So it went with the botanical supply industry. As I am learning about the best way to import high-quality herbs and spices from abroad, I wanted to get as much context as possible about this business. Of course, books can only tell you so much, but they are a good place to start. Here is what I learned after reading nine books about the trade of plants around the world.
The history of the global trade in aromatics is like an epic pirate adventure novel.
I think this is what subconsciously drew me to this industry in the first place. The more I learn about it, the more I am astounded by what a wild story it is.
Spices and herbs were first traded in the Fertile Crescent many thousands of years ago (see Gary Paul Nabhan’s book Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey for more dates and details). From the very beginning, professional spice traders were mysterious figures who intentionally cultivated an air of the exotic. They would intentionally obscure origins of spices in order to cement their roles as middlemen, and would invent fantastical stories about the plants themselves. Killer birds protecting groves of frankincense trees, where the only deterrent is another rare herb, anyone?
At different points in history, these spice traders would merge with pirates themselves. This ranges from the Nabateans in the BCE times, to Portuguese merchants first encountering spice trading in India. They would eliminate the competition, in effect cornering the market for future trading and gaining short-term riches. In time, this became serious business. As Tony Hill, author of The Contemporary Encyclopedia of Herbs and Spices puts it: “wars have been waged for cargos of cloves from the Banda Islands, and empires bought and sold for trading rights to nutmeg”.
Plants seem to have a mind of themselves.
Once trade was established and wealthy countries recognized the value of herbs and spices, plants began to zig-zag around the world, quickly finding places where they could take root. Chile peppers, native to Central & South America, are now the most popular condiment in the world. Within mere decades of the European encounter in The Americas, chile peppers made their way throughout Europe, the Middle East, and all the way to China. These different locales soon began growing varieties well-adapted to their climate and cuisine, and it would be difficult now to imagine Indian or Chinese food without the ubiquitous pepper.
This is also the reason why vanilla (native to Mexico) is now mainly cultivated in Madagascar and Indonesia. Because vanilla requires a very specific tiny stingless bee for pollination, the vast majority of vanilla farmers learned to pollinate their flowers by hand. Madagascar and Indonesia had the right conditions for vanilla farming to flourish, and the industry soon took off.
According to legend, the tea plant was smuggled out of China by an English botanist, as a way to gain self-sufficiency for the UK’s growing tea habit, which up until that point was beholden to China for this precious caffeinated plant.
The point is — it almost seems that plants have been whispering in our ears for generations, telling us to scatter their seed and grow them widely across the earth. Of course, the movements of plants across the globe is intricately entwined with the various social, political, and economic developments of history. The study of this human interaction with plants is what some people call economic botany. But I also like to think that the wild card, the spice of the story itself, is the plants subtly guiding our own actions.
In many ways, the modern botanical supply industry mirrors the spice trade from hundreds of years ago.
As I was reading all of these books, I was struck by the fact that there are so many recurring themes throughout history, and that many of these motifs still exist in the present-day industry.
For one thing, it is still in very large part a shadowy industry. Although there are some companies that are doing great things to change this — my next blog post, perhaps? — most businesses make information on traceability and sourcing intentionally difficult to find. There is a vast network of brokers, traders, and middlemen who all touch these precious plants before they reach your spice rack. On one hand, they are protecting valuable trade secrets and supplier networks, which you can’t really blame them for. But on the other hand, this is an intentional cultivation of the air of the exotic, playing up faraway origins and the idealized ‘other’.
Whether it is because of speculation or increased demand, many of these plants still have huge values attributed to them. Many of these botanicals were used as actual currency in antiquity. Yerba mate in South America, Chile peppers and Vanilla in the Yucatan, frankincense tears in the Middle East — the list goes on and on. Many of these spices were found entombed with kings and queens. Ransoms and tributes to Emperors were paid with spices. And although botanicals are not used as currency themselves in modern times (unless you maybe go to a barter fair), they are still highly prized. Coffee is a commodity oftentimes deemed black gold. Saffron and vanilla sell for exorbitant prices, and the essential oil of a bulgarian rose costs $1,000 per ounce. Just go walk through the herb or spice aisle at your local Whole Foods, and you will see what I mean.
And finally — because these are such highly-prized items from exotic locations, there has always been a problem of quality. Even now, unless you have a highly-trusted network of harvesters, farmers, transporters, brokers, and importers, it is hard to know exactly what you are consuming. Due to the fractional nature of the trade, many botanicals spend months or years (!) languishing in warehouses and ports. This harkens back to the days of the Spice Road, when these plants would be transported via camel caravan, the journey often taking months. There is even a special blend of tea called “Camel’s Breath Tea”, named for the flavor-inducing process that occurred when a pu-erh spent enough time on a camel’s saddlebags to take on the pungent taste of a camel. It really is a double-edged sword; we are drawn to the exotic and foreign nature of these plants, but because of these distant origins, we never will truly be able to truly experience these botanicals in their full natural glory.
Here are the books which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Are there any I should add to this list?
Tony Hill, The Contemporary Encyclopedia of Herbs and Spices
Maricel Pesilla, Peppers of the Americas
Marjorie Shaffer, Pepper: A History of the World’s Most Influential Spice
John Keay, The Spice Route: A History
Kurt Michael Friese, Kraig Kraft, Gary Paul Nabhan, Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along The Pepper Trail
Gary Paul Nabhan, Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey
Jack Turner, Spice, The History of A Temptation
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants
Ann Armbrecht, The Business of Botanicals; Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry