The World of Apples

The spice shelf

Cardamom

Native to the Western Ghats, drunk in Arabian coffee, grown most of all in Guatemala

Where it comes from

The evergreen forests of the Western Ghats are the home of small cardamom, grown for its dried capsules. In India it is cultivated almost entirely in that range, Kerala having 57% of the area, Karnataka 36% and Tamil Nadu 7%. The plant wants 1,500–2,500 mm of rain spread through the year, forest loam, an altitude of 600–1,200 m and the shade of trees1.

Capsules ripen 120 to 135 days after they form, and because they ripen unevenly the harvest in Kerala runs from June or July to January or February, with pickers going through the same plants every 15 to 30 days. The capsules are picked when the rind is dark green and the seeds black; fully ripe ones split and lose their colour. Curing brings the moisture down from about 80% to 10–12% by indirect heat held at 40–45 °C, which keeps the green1. Three types are recognised by the way the flowering shoot grows: Malabar, lying on the ground, Mysore, erect, and Vazhukka, in between1.

How it travelled

Cardamom was among the spices carried from India to the Middle East by Arabian mariners and caravan traders some two thousand years before Europeans reached the Americas2. Its great market is still Arabia: cardamom coffee, qahwat al-hail, is a near-universal gesture of hospitality in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia consumes the bulk of the world’s crop, and demand peaks in the month before Ramadan2.

The twist in the story is Guatemalan. In 1914 Oscar Majus Klöffer, the German owner of an estate near Cobán in Alta Verapaz, planted cardamom to diversify the local economy4. The German planters, a Guatemalan grower said, “found that the climate in Guatemala, especially in Alta Verapaz, was similar to that of India”2. The crop first boomed on the Pacific slopes, moved to Alta Verapaz after a virus wiped out those plantations, and by about 1987 Guatemala had overtaken India. Almost none is eaten in Guatemala: in 1995 about 60% of its exports went to Saudi Arabia and another tenth to the United Arab Emirates2.

Today

India’s Spices Board estimates the 2023–24 crop of small cardamom at 25,230 tonnes from 70,410 hectares, of which Kerala grew 22,869 tonnes, about nine-tenths5.

Guatemala is the world’s largest producer and exporter3,4. A 2014 report put its output at about 35,000 tonnes a year against world exports of around 45,000, with Alta Verapaz growing about seven-tenths of it3; in 2024 it exported 28,321 tonnes, worth 497 million US dollars, chiefly to Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bangladesh and Pakistan6. About 350,000 families depend on the crop, grown mostly by small Mayan producers under shade4. The harvest there begins in September and October3.

With apples

No traditional dish of the Indian Ocean rim pairs cardamom with apples; the region’s signature use is in coffee, tea and rice. The pairing belongs to Scandinavian baking, where cardamom is a household spice and apple cakes often carry it. Crushed green pods in a baked apple give it the scent of a Gulf coffee house.

Recipe

Cardamom baked apples with honey and almonds, for four.

  1. Heat the oven to 180 °C.
  2. Crush the seeds of eight green cardamom pods in a mortar and discard the husks.
  3. Mix the ground seeds with three tablespoons of honey, three tablespoons of flaked almonds, two tablespoons of raisins and two tablespoons of soft butter.
  4. Core four apples, leaving the base intact, and score the skin around the middle so they do not burst.
  5. Pack the filling into the cavities and set the apples in a small dish with 100 ml of water.
  6. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until soft, basting once with the juices.
  7. Serve with the juices and a spoon of thick yoghurt or crème fraîche.

Notes

  • Cardamom is picked by hand, pod by pod, because the pods along a shoot do not ripen together1,3.
  • It takes four pods to fill a quarter-teaspoon with seeds, which helps explain the price2.
  • A plant takes about three years to bear, and its cycle can run to twenty years4.

Where the sources disagree

  • India’s crop. The cultivation guide gives 11,235 tonnes for 2020–211; the Spices Board’s state table gives 25,230 for 2023–245. The table is used; the gap is unexplained.
  • The Scandinavian pairing of apples and cardamom is supported only by recipe collections; a food historian’s account was not found.

Sources

  1. Cardamom: cultivation practices, ICAR Indian Institute of Spices Research, with the Spices Board. Supports: the Western Ghats origin, the state shares, the climate and soil, the cultivar types, the ripening, harvest and curing.
  2. The cardamom connection, Aramco World, March 1997. Supports: the ancient trade, Gulf coffee and Ramadan demand, the German planters, the move to Alta Verapaz, Guatemala overtaking India, and the export destinations of 1995.
  3. Cardamom: the 3Gs, Green Gold of Guatemala, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, GAIN report, 11 July 2014. Supports: Guatemala's output and record exports, Alta Verapaz's share, the harvest season, the grades, and the pests.
  4. Lessons from cardamom for a green recovery, Inter-American Development Bank. Supports: the 1914 planting by Oscar Majus Klöffer near Cobán, Guatemala's share, the families who depend on the crop, and the plant's cycle.
  5. Major spice and state-wise area and production of spices, 2021–22 to 2025–26, Spices Board of India. Supports: India's and Kerala's area and production of small cardamom in 2023–24.
  6. Guatemala strengthens position as No. 1 cardamom exporter worldwide, Guatemala Portal, citing FAO trade data, 28 April 2026. Supports: Guatemala's exports in 2024 and their destinations.