Regions / Kerala
Kerala spices
Kerala’s humid hills and backwaters are the story behind black pepper, cardamom, clove and cinnamon-adjacent trade spices that still define South Indian kitchens.
Cardamom from the Western Ghats, Tellicherry-style pepper, and coconut-rich masala traditions sit alongside Syrian-Christian and Malabar Muslim cooking. Lots labelled Kerala should match the pack, not a generic ‘South India’ claim.
Use Kerala pepper in fish moilee, cardamom in payasam, and a light hand with clove in biryani. Whole spices toasted in coconut oil give a different aroma than the same spices bloomed in ghee.
These spices are commonly associated with Kerala. That is a regional story, not a guarantee that every bag on this site is from that state. Country of origin and region on the pack must follow the lot.
- Black pepper — Dried pepper berries; garbled and ungarbled grades appear in Indian market reports.
- Green cardamom — Small green pods; sweet-camphor aroma for sweets, tea, and biryani.
- Clove — Dried flower buds; intense eugenol aroma.
- Cassia — Hard bark quills commonly sold as dalchini in Indian retail.
- Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) — True cinnamon — only sell under this name when the species is verified.
- Mace — The aril of nutmeg; sold separately from the nutmeg kernel.
- Nutmeg — Kernel of the nutmeg fruit. UK import controls can apply to nutmeg/mace/cardamom categories.
- Dried ginger — Dried rhizome (sonth), whole or powdered.
- Dried galangal — Dried rhizome related to ginger, more camphoraceous.
- Dried curry leaf — Dried Murraya koenigii leaves for South Indian tempering.
- Kokum — Dried kokum rind, souring agent of the Konkan coast.
- White pepper — Decorticated pepper; different flavour from black pepper.
- Kanthari chilli — Named Indian chilli cultivar: Kanthari chilli.
