Herbs and spices are commonly bind with the name of Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan people used spices since long time ago. During the past and still in the present our country exports spices to the world. Even in the colonial time, we were famous around the world for spices. European countries identified us by the name of “Spice Island”.
Ancient European people used spices for food preservations. Because, at that time they did not have refrigerators to Therefore, we found a good demand for our herbs and spices from Europe. Hence, the European tried to sail to Sri Lanka and India for spices.
History of Sri Lankan herbs and spices
In 1505 AD, Portuguese came to Sri Lanka. At that time, they called us as Ceylon. They brought our spices to Europe but they did not try to cultivate spices here.
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After the Portuguese, Dutch sailors came to Sri Lanka for spices. In contrast with Portuguese, they cultivate spices here. They helped Sri Lankan people to cultivate spices. At that time, Dutch cultivators introduce the Cinnamon cultivation.
They grew cinnamon in the area, which is presently call as the “Cinnamon Gardens” in Colombo. Later English people started to grow spices in Sri Lanka for more regular manner. They developed growing of spices like cloves and nutmeg. Consequently, Ceylon developed her spice exporting. At that time, we exported cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and black pepper as major spices. Furthermore, we exported Vanilla, curry leaves, coriander, cumin seeds, caraway seeds, turmeric, fenugreek, brassica, ginger, lemongrass, etc. as minor herbs and spices.
Present herbs and spices industry of Sri Lanka
In the present economy exporting of herbs and spices is not holds a major part. The reason for this is English governments changed our main exporting crop to tea during their period. They introduced us coffee and tea. Therefore, most of the spice cultivating lands changed into tea estates.
Today exporting of our herbs and spices divides into two major categories. One of those is value added spices and the other one is raw spices. Exporting value added herbs and spices are more profitable comparing to raw exporting. We export spice mixes, herbs mixes for medicinal purposes, ready-made drinks, easy to use herbal and spice tea bags, etc.
Herbs and spices industry of Sri Lanka grows for a new pathway today. Spice makers target a different way to improve their businesses. It is agro-tourism; we commonly call these types of spice farming as spice gardens. They target the foreigners. Giving a herbal massage, serving a herbal tea and displaying a herbal and spice garden to them with an introduction to Sri Lankan herbs and spices. If you are a spice lover, we can arrange the best places to visit in Sri Lanka for spices.
