We ate our last meal there before heading out of the city toward the vast tea estates and spice gardens that lace the Cardamom Hills of Kerala. Tea estates cascaded down the steep valleys, their tight, trimmed shrubs looking as manicured as a formal English garden. Many of the sprawling tea estates we passed are owned by Tata Global Beverages, which maintains 51 estates in India and Sri Lanka. From the time of the Roman Empire, people have been coming to Kerala for black pepper. The green pepper berries become black pepper after they spend four or five days in the sun.

Source: New York Times October 23, 2017 09:00 UTC