We had been to Munnar in November 2010. We had taken a drive from Cochin to Munnar. En-route we had encountered this beautiful and tremendous Spice Garden.
This garden hosted plants and trees of almost all the spices that are used across India like turmeric, coriander, chilli, cumin, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg etc. It also had plants like vanilla, whose extract is widely used for commercial purposes and as an active flavoring ingredient for many food preparations.
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| Vanilla Plant |
The garden hosted many vegetable plants also but they were special. For instance, we spotted a Brinjal plant that was supposed to have medicinal values. Then there were many other plants and trees which are used for some medicinal purposes or Ayurvedic purposes, like Eucalyptus, snake plant, mint, cocoa pods, ornamental pineapples, betle nuts, brahmi .... and the list goes on.
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| Brinjal Plant with medicinal value |
We were taken through a guided tour of the garden and the Guide filled us in with some really valuable information. Would it not have been for him, we won't have known that the brinjal plant we were looking at had medicinal value, that turmeric is added to almost all Indian curry preparation with other spices because it absorbs the negative effects and harshness of the other spices, balancing the combination in turn, or the fact that this hive we observed high up on a tree was not the one made by honey bees but rather flying ants :)
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| The nest of flying ants on tree top |
The garden also had a shop near the entrance from where one could buy different packaged products like spices, eucalyptus oil, handmade soaps from the extracts of the flora in the garden and various other such products of Ayurvedic or Herbal cosmetic value.
Overall it was a very enriching as well as aromatic and refreshing tour around the spice garden.
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