The Aroma of India
--Why did the British want India?
Geographically, India was Britain's connection to the trade with the rest of Asia. The British initially controlled the three ports of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, which gave them the access to Southeast Asia and China, where they could trade Chinese tea that enthralled British nobles. Eventually, the British had to control more and more territories around the ports to protect the trades. As a result, the British kept expanding their territory, until eventually they colonized the whole India.
India was an awesome place flooding with raw materials that the British lacked: jute, indigo, cotton, and tea. Additionally, once Britain had taken the materials and made goods out of them, they'd ship them back to India and force the Indians to buy only those goods. The British made a fortune off of them because of the huge market--India's population is obviously huge!
The spices of the East were valuable in those days, despite their cheap prices nowadays. During the Middle Ages, a pound of ginger was worth a sheep, a pound of mace worth three sheep or half a cow. Pepper, the most valuable spice of all, was counted out in individual peppercorns, and a sack of pepper was said to be worth a man's life. Da Gama's successful voyage that opened tading routes connecting Europe and Asia intensified an international power struggle for control over the spice trade. For three centuries afterwards the nations of Western Europe, such as Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and Great Britain, fought bloody sea-wars over the spice-producing colonies.
By the year 1000 Arabians had conquered the Indus valley, what is now India, bringing the cumin and coriander that mixed with Indian pepper, ginger and turmeric make up the base of so many South Asian dishes. It was this combination of spices that centuries later British sailors spread throughout the world as curry powder.
At the spices tasting station, you can have experience by yourself the fascinating flavors of different Indian spices, and appreciate the history behind it--you would want to colonize India if you had the power like the British did, just for the sake of curry!
At the spices tasting station, you can have experience by yourself the fascinating flavors of different Indian spices, and appreciate the history behind it--you would want to colonize India if you had the power like the British did, just for the sake of curry!