​explore & harvest in the hotel's private Spice Garden

 

Shaded by clove, durian, pomelo and wild jack trees, the hotel’s private piece garden hosts most of the island’s most famous species – and not a little of its less known ones too.

 

King of all the spices is – of course - cinnamon, whose bushes are found across several acres on the estate as well as in the spice garden itself. 

 

Here, too, you will find nutty-flavoured pandan leaves, fragrant lemongrass, and curry leaves – the go-to garnish accessory in the kitchen.

 

Scrabbling up glericidia poles is the exotic Blue Butterfly Pea Flower; pepper,  the vines ripening twice yearly; and vanilla, whose buds require hand fertilisation with a special paintbrush.

 

Cardamom grows in shady beds, along with turmeric and long pepper.  In sunnier beds, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, fennel, Gotu Kola, chilli and ginger are to be found.

 

Tamarind, Goroka, moringa and kaffir lime trees grow beside an avenue of cocoa trees – and rising above them all is an ancient Ceylon Oak, under whose roots lie the graves of the estate’s last working elephants.

​

Listen to the podcast here.

​