In XVIII century while dominated by arabs, Zanzibar was the world’s biggest exporter of cloves in the world. Spice Tour allow you to visit and learn about the production process of a diversity of spices that have played an important role in Zanzibari culture and history.
I did the tour together with 3 Danish girls, Karen, Maria and Astrid – they were my guests from couchsurfing when I was living in Nungwi, in the north of the island of Zanzibar.
The tour costs approximately 20 dollars and different companies have different prices. The first spice was the nutmeg that we could touch and taste as all the others spices on the way.
I was a bit sick with cold and the guide found me a solution. He asked me to put some of those fruits that looked like yellow tomatoes inside my nostrils and I started to sniff non-stop. In a few minutes I was completely cured.
We finally reached the king of the spices, the clove. The guide told us that this spice works natural anesthetic for toothaches, so I testes and I really felt my mouth numb.
After the clove, we went to meet the queen of the spices, the cinnamon, which surprised me positively. First we smell the leaf, after that, the bark of the cinnamon, which is sold dry. The most impressive was to smell the root that has the same smell and effect of Vick VapoRub.
On the way to the pepper, we stopped in a tree that had Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English. That a famous black European sweet had exactly the same taste as the natural one.
Finally we arrived at the pepper, green, red and white. My face after trying it was not so good!
We passed a cotton tree and a boy presented the girls with natural handicrafts, necklaces, bracelets and rings made of plants. I also had a taste of starfruit found on the way.
We came to another part of the farm that had coffee, ginger and saffron.
In this part the girls also tried the natural lipstick, which is a tincture from a small fruit.
At the end of the farm visit, we come to a sale where it is possible to buy seasonings in bagged powders of all kinds.
We went through more seasonings on the farm visit, including lemon balm, green grass, and other spices, but as there were several, I did not include them all. When I thought that the tour was over, we were surprised by a buffet of fruits.
We eat papaya, jackfruit, banana, mango, pineapple, tangerine and orange, grapefruit. Everything was delicious. It’s a great tour, I recommend it!