Known as the "Queen of Spices", cardamom grows in shaded hill gardens above 600 metres, mainly around Kandy, Matale, Kegalle, and Nuwara Eliya. Pods are hand-picked before they're fully ripe and clipped off individually, since cardamom loses its aroma if left to over-mature on the plant, with harvesting running in short bursts through a narrow season to catch each batch at its peak. Every batch is bought directly from the farming families who grow it, and can be traced back to the estate it left.
