SPICE TOURING IN ZANZIBAR

How many times have you eaten good food in a restaurant and appreciated the spices or spice combo the food has?For me?This got me curious to see where spices really come from,how they are grown and well….to attach my favorite spice names I know to how they look as they grow.

Zanzibar has lots of spice farms and stores and touring these places is a must do if you ask me.I noticed the standard cost for this tour in most hotels was 15 dollars and in my opinion it makes things easier for the tour guide and yourself financially if you group up or find other travellers to go with…..not to say that that reduces the standard cost but Zanzibar  tours sometimes are mostly about negotiating.I did this with a traveller who suggested it to me .

Am pretty sure you can start this tour from any part of Zanzibar but we started ours from Stone town.We were taken to Jambo Spice Farms,had a wonderful Zanzibarian welcome and learnt about a variety of spices including Tumeric,cadamon,mimosa( which I learned was also called ‘touch me not’),Red banana,lemon grass,black pepper,mango, nutmeg,pomelo ( grapefruit),vanilla,cocoa,cinnamon,carambola,ginger and anato ( also called natural lipstick)

The guides at the farm took time to explain about the different spices and if you are lucky on your tour you could get yourself a plate full of fresh fruit.What was so hilarious is seeing ‘Mr Butterfly’ climb a coconut tree whilst singing a ‘Welcome to Zanzibar song’ .