Sometime around mid-morning and after the visits to the pearl museum and silk museum have been concluded, you reach the pepper farm, which is run as a family owned business complete with a guesthouse and shop cum exhibition area. As the guide delves into the details of pepper cultivation, you can at the same time taste the flavour and aroma of the raw fruit right there in the middle of the garden as the guide passes each tiny morsel of seed around the group. Four kinds of pepper—red, green, black, and white—are used for commercial purposes, with each being a particular phase in the life cycle of the mother plant. Like silk and pearl (and related materials harvested from the sea such as coral and seaweed), pepper has formed an integral part of trade in this region, spanning a vast swathe of land and water from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and even beyond.
The different varieties of pepper are available as condiments in whole or ground form, but more importantly, they are incorporated into various types of dips, sauces and flavouring agents in both everyday foods and gourmet cuisine. A simple platter of the season’s best mangoes (which incidentally are found almost throughout the year) is placed in front of visitors in bite sized pieces in order to sample the amazing array of preparations that can be created with pepper.
After the palate has been tickled sufficiently, you move on to a neighbouring outlet that specialises in the local alcoholic brew, also known as ‘sim’. Needless to say, this is a totally otherworldly level of high, where spirits with an alcohol content from the lowest 2-3% to the highest 39% are offered to guests in shot glasses (made of paper), along with an assortment of candies and similar items, as the potent sips start to work their intoxicating magic upon the enthralled audience.
