Family: Zingiberaceae
Subfamily:
Genus: Curcuma
Species: C. longa
Cultivation:

Plant Traits

Cardamom is native to India and Sri Lanka where it occurs in the wild. It has been introduced all over all over tropical Asia where it is cultivated. The plant grows in a thick clump of up to 20 leafy shoots. It can reach a height of between 2 to almost 6 m.

Leaves - dark green, long and sword-shaped. The underside is paler and may have a covering of tiny hairs.

Flowers - on a long flowering stalk which can grow to more than 1 m long. They are both male and female and are pale green. One of the petals is white and streaked with violet.

Fruits - pale green to yellow and elongated oval-shape. Each fruit has 3 chambers filled with small aromatic seeds, each about 3 mm long. The fruits and seeds dry to a straw-brown colour and are widely used as flavouring.

Traditional medicine .

"Tsaoko" cardamom Amomum tsao-ko is cultivated in Yunnan, China and northwest Vietnam, both for medicinal purposes and as a spice. Increased demand since the 1980s, principally from China, for both Amomum villosum and Amomum tsao-ko has provided a key source of income for poor farmers living at higher altitudes in localized areas of China, Laos and Vietnam, people typically isolated from many other markets. Until recently, Nepal had been the world's largest producer of large cardamom. Guatemala has become the world's largest producer and exporter of cardamom, with an export total of US$137.2 million for 2007.

Ceremonial uses.

Cardamom, Nutritional value per 100 g.
(Source: USDA National Nutrient data base)

Principle	Nutrient Value	Percentage of RDA
Energy	311 Kcal	15.5%
Carbohydrates	68.47 g	52.5%
Protein	10.76 g	19%
Total Fat	6.7 g	23%
Cholesterol	0 mg	0%
Dietary Fiber	28 g	70%
Vitamins
Niacin	1.102 mg	7%
Pyridoxine	0.230 mg	18%
Riboflavin	0.182 mg	14%
Thiamin	0.198 mg	16.5%
Vitamin A	0 IU	0%
Vitamin C	21 mg	35%
Electrolytes
Sodium	18 mg	1%
Potassium	1119 mg	24%
Minerals
Calcium	383 mg	38%
Copper	0.383 mg	42.5%
Iron	13.97 mg	175%
Magnesium	229 mg	57%
Manganese	28 mg	1217%
Phosphorus	178 mg	25%
Zinc	7.47 mg	68%

Food Uses

Cardamom has a strong, unique taste, with an intensely aromatic, resinous fragrance. Black cardamom has a distinctly more smoky, though not bitter, aroma with a coolness some consider similar to mint.

It is a common ingredient in Indian cooking, and is often used in baking in Nordic countries, such as in the Finnish sweet bread pulla or in the Scandinavian bread Julekake. Green cardamom is one of the most expensive spices by weight but little is needed to impart the flavor. Cardamom is best stored in pod form because once the seeds are exposed or ground they quickly lose their flavor. However, high-quality ground cardamom is often more readily (and cheaply) available and is an acceptable substitute. For recipes requiring whole cardamom pods, a generally accepted equivalent is 10 pods equals 1� teaspoons of ground cardamom. In the Middle East, green cardamom powder is used as a spice for sweet dishes as well as traditional flavouring in coffee and tea. Cardamom pods are ground together with coffee beans to produce a powdered mixture of the two, which is boiled with water to make coffee. Cardamom is also used in some extent in savoury dishes. In Arabic, cardamom is called Hayl or "Habahan." In Hebrew, it is called hel (??). In Persian, it is also called hel. In Gujarati (a derivative of Sanskrit), it is "E-li-che". In Telugu, it is called Elaichi (?????) or Yaalukalu (???????). In Malay, it is called "Buah Pelaga". In some Middle Eastern countries, coffee and cardamom are often ground in a wooden mortar; a mihbaj, and cooked together in a skillet; a "mehmas" over wood or gas, to produce mixtures that are as much as forty percent cardamom. In South Asia, green cardamom is often used in traditional Indian sweets and in Masala chai (spiced tea). Black cardamom is sometimes used in garam masala for curries. It is occasionally used as a garnish in basmati rice and other dishes. It is often referred to as fat cardamom due its size ('Moti Elaichi'). Individual seeds are sometimes chewed, in much the same way as chewing-gum; it is even used by Wrigley's ('Eclipse Breeze Exotic Mint') in which it states "with cardamom to neutralize the toughest breath odors". It has also been known to be used for gin making, and in curries.

Other Uses

Both forms of cardamom are used as flavorings in both food and drink, as cooking spices and as a medicine. Elettaria cardamomum (the usual type of cardamom) is used as a spice, a masticatory, and in medicine; it is also smoked sometimes; it is used as a food plant by the larva of the moth Endoclita hosei.