September 4: Spice Tour

There is something strangely efficient about India. It's not always logical, or on time, but things generally get accomplished fairly smoothly. Things are even fairly regimented sometimes -- as evidenced by the spice tour we went on this morning.

The region around Kumily is known for its spices and coffee and tea, and a plantation tour usually takes a half a day. We only had two hours early in the mornign to spare before hopping a noontime bus. The guy at our hotel said no problem he'd arrange it, and at 7 AM there were three rickshaws waiting for us downstairs. We piled in and careened off in rickshaw style to our first coffee plantation. Our guide, Shaji, walked us up a hill and showed us our first coffee plant. He held up three fingers (a gesture I knew well from yesterday's Periyar tour, in whic the guid mostly said things like: "There are five deer here -- small, big, white, white and big, and black." Or "There are three kinds of squirrels -- small, giant, and flying." Cataloguing and naming is a big deal here.) and announced there were three kinds of coffee grown: arabica, and two others that I can no longer remember. This would disturb Shaji greatly, as nto only was he a vataloguer, but he wanted to make sure we were paying attention. He would stop and start over if he saw someone's attention wandering. Since not everyone understood his fast-paced, Indian-accented English, I told him not to worry about it, that I would repeat what he said to everyone. Thisonly helped partially, since he was just as adamant that everyone pay close attention when I spoke and he made me stop if they weren't.

"That one. Him. He's not listening." Once, when Peggy was fiddling with her camera, interrupted me to get her attention. "You. Do you already know this? Yes? Then why don't you explain it to everyone?" Like an elementary school teacher.

Regardless, Shaji smiled a great deal and was full of wonderful information. "Please, Madam" he would say to me -- now that I was acting as interpreter, I got most of his attention, and the gruop continued to echo his "Please Madam" at me for the rest of the day -- and he pulled me over to taste a raw coffee bean. (They taste, well, green.) He was meticulous with numbers, telling us how long the beans were roasted and at what temperature. He corrected me if I skipped this information in my retelling. He also fed us small purple flowers called mimosas, said to be an Aryuvedic cure for a sick stomach. Half the gruop grabbed at them, laughing. The coolest thing about the mimosas, however, was taht their fern-like leaves pulled closed if you touched them. (The Germans said they finally understood a phrase where you mock someone who is being too timid by calling them an alte mimosa.)

Next we rickshawed our way to some cardamom-covered hills. Cardamom plants, it turns out, are beautiful. Long thing leaves, almost like a thick blade of grass, tower up over your head; the seeds grow close to the ground on stalks that jut out of the roots. The season lasts some three months, with seeds taking two weeks to ripen. Every two weeks women come through and hand pick a crop of seeds. "Please, Madam!" Shaji cracked open a pod for me. It was delicious. Still raw, and slightly green-tasting, but cardamom nonetheless.

Shaji then bustled us up a hill. He wanted us to be quick sine we only had two hours and he wanted us to see everything. He barked when people stopped to take pictures of the view. "It's better from the top," he said.

And it was.

I stepped out from behind a tree and gasped out loud. One by one I heard everyone else make the same involuntary noise. We were at the top of a hill ("Two miles high," said Shaji) looking down onto an extensive valley. As far as you could see, the sides of the hills were covered with dark green tea plants -- they grow strangely geometrically, leaving winding passageways in between the bushes, almost like a garden labyrinth. Spaced in perfect rows. among the tea plants, were trees for shade. Colors dotted the landscape -- the occasional cottage, women int eh fields. Shaji finally allowed us to take some photos.

On the way back down we stopped at another coffee plant. they grew straight upwards, Shaji said, but they were pruned to stay low, so women could pick the beans. "Men ask for 120 rupees [$3], women only ask for 65. And the men maybe they work one day but not the next. The women don't go on strike." I repeated this to the group unthinkingly. It wasn't until Lars said, "65 per day?!?" that I processed the information. Keep the trees lower for hassle-free labor. (See? Strangely efficient.)

Next stop: a cardamom roasting house. A fire outside pumps hot air through pipes at the bottom of a room. The cardamom pods lie on screens above this for 24 hours at 50 degrees Celsius. I think one kil of raw pods reduces to 750 grams, but I can't remember how much it sells for. Shaji would be very disappointed in me.

What I do remember is this-- as Shaji picked spices for us on the walk back to the rickshaws: vanilla (only one kind, not tasty raw, reduces from one kil to 250 grams when roasted) looks like green beans on the stalk; allspice (only one kind) is a combination of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves; and peppercorns (four kinds, but all from the same plant, harvested at different times) have the spiciest, loveliest, most complex flavor right off the vine.