 Welcome to the Spice Island of Zanzibar. ZANBAR! Spices were brought to the rich and fertile soils of Zanzibar a thousand years ago. They were considered one of the world's most prized commodities, even rivaling gold. The Arabs started large spice plantations, which made Zanzibar the world's biggest exporter of cloves at the time and earned its name the Spice Island. Today we are touring a spice farm to learn about the flavors of Zanzibar. Oh my God! Get quizzed about our knowledge on spices. The smell is familiar but I'm not sure what the plant is. See up close how spices like cloves, cardamom and cinnamon are grown. And taste some locally grown fruits straight from the land. The best coconut meat that I've ever had in my life. But before, some makeup is in order to spice things up a little bit and what's better than mother nature's lipstick. This is a shrub that's actually native to Central America but clearly made its way to this farm in East Africa and it's known for its natural orange-red condiment. When I take one seed and crush it out, we get the color. Wow you really do. So he will put on his lips, straight eye. Does it have a good taste? It has no taste. That's why I say we never eat it raw as a normal fruit. We use it as a makeup and we use it as spices only for food in color. Wow that's really like powerful. Wow. Does it feel like a thicker paste? Does it remind you of lipstick already or is it a bit watery compared to... It's actually a nice consistency. It just feels like a lip balm. It's got enough moisture. This tree right here is a cinnamon tree and it's known as the Queen of Spices and here's why. It's the queen because we use the whole tree. We don't waste anything from it. Are we using the leaves? We use the bark and we use the root. We get three smell in a one tree, also different the way how we use it. The leaves we use a lot in Zanzibar if during by Ramadan. If we first thing we don't eat by whole day, we don't drink anything until after sunset. So after sunset before we start to have the meal, we need to prepare something which is going to break our fast. So we make a porridge between corn flour, leaves of cinnamon, boil it together with the water. We make a porridge. We drink after sunset together with the date, goes to open our stomach. It is giving appetizer then we eat it enough as a weekend. The bark of cinnamon when we peel off like this after six months totally, they recover by itself to the tree. How do we get cinnamon sticks which is looks brown and roll up? We cut the whole tree from here. Wow. If we cut from here, this pot grows up, new shoot, this trunk, take back home, take back home and sit down, right? If you sit down, you need to take off the rough skin. I mean clean like this way first, okay? This how we clean because we need to have this browning color. Then we chop into pieces the size of cinnamon stick, right? Remove the skin slowly by whole around. When you dry to the sun itself, goes and roll up, becomes cinnamon stick. We don't have like machine, take the bark, put in the machine, roll them, no. Just it is depend by strong of the sun and the way how you peel off the skin. So from cinnamon stick, we may grind it, we may add into powder. We put in tea, coffee, milk, rice, bread, in cake for flavor. The root of cinnamon, we use in Zanzibar to protect our body for the COVID. Why we use to protect our body by using cinnamon root? Because they smell like VIX Viperup. When we get sinus, cold, if we get fever, take the root of cinnamon and we do inhale it for steaming, what I mean? We boil with the water, then we take the blanket, we do inhalation or we do stimulation. This one, the root of cinnamon, now you're going to smell of a VIX, got it? Wow. I really do. Oh my God. This is a small plant of cinnamon. This part here is a part of the root, grows underneath. This part here is above, smell totally different with the root. So we can see how the different right now. The roots smell like VIX Viperup and the bark smell of cinnamon. Here now we can see how the different cinnamon smell VIX Viperup. In one piece or the other. That's crazy. Wow, that's amazing. Have you ever used nutmeg before? I personally have many times but I never knew what the fruit looked like. Nutmeg! What we use is this, the red parts, we take them out, we dry to the shed and grind it, we made the powder, we put in cake, we use as a nice decoration. And the nut, what you buy to your country, which is lukes, brown in color, we get inside of that nut again. We dry first, then it will shake out, then we break it, we go to take off the brown nut inside. The brown nuts, what people grinded it and made into powder, they use them in a bechamelosus, pudding mashed potato, vegetarian curry, rice for flavor. Instead of it, this nutmeg if you put in the food you have to put very little bit, because it's poisonous. If you put much, you will get high. So women in Zanzibar, they're Muslim, they're not allowed to drink alcohol. During by waiting, we play local music, they want to come and join with the people and get party. But we got shyness women, boring women, for to remove the shyness, they will take three four of nut and grind it, they boil with the porridge or in tea. When they drink it five, ten minutes, their eyes they will change becomes really sex eyes. For like many one eyes. When they go back to waiting, all the shyness away, they go crazy. Is this our sacred of Zanzibar, why people do they have too much baby? Because of nutmeg. Use as a kind of Afrodisac or Viagra. Don't ask anyone Zanzibar why people deserve too much baby because of nutmeg. Oh boy. It's like drugs, if you drink much of it, you will get high and crazy. This next plant is fresh turmeric. Holy cow, you like carrot. Oh that smells already good. It smells. Thank you. That really smells so fresh. Suffering is really expensive spice in the world. Instead of suffering, we use turmeric in Zanzibar. We do call it turmeric is the poor main suffering because it's cheap, then suffering itself. It's very medicinal turmeric for the anti-inflammatory. If for those people who don't run much in toilet, I mean digestion problem, turmeric, papaya and milk which is hot, put in the blender, we blend them and make a kind of juice, drink it, you will be fine. So we say actually, young coconut water, are they good for clean pee pee? To American papaya, are they good for popo? Our women when they get acne, if they get acne or pimples, the turmeric, ginger, cloves, all in powder, coconut oil, mix them together, they apply to the face. Every half an hour they wash fresh by water, the acne are coming out and becomes pretty almost. Right here, you see, is ginger. This ginger grows like this, long. And the ginger, the plant itself. When the time for harvesting has you see the plant, I get to die themself. If they die themself, we just come and pull out the roots. We use ginger when they're fresh. If we buy the meat which is really tough, take ginger, grate out, boil it with the tough meat, the meat become tender and soft. It's the medicine for those people who are suffering by coughing, stomach. We make tea of ginger, drink it, you will be fine with that. For the traveling sea sickness, if you feel to vomiting, take ginger and chew it. As you make tea, drink it, stop to vomiting. Ginger when they're dry and powder, we make a candy, biscuit, South Africa, they make ginger, elder ginger beer. In Zanzibar, we get our own company, we make disorder, which is called Stony Tangawizi. Tangawizi is that the name of ginger in Swahili. I love the Tangawizi. Tangawizi. Stony, the time when you drink, you feel stony right here. You have to remember that this is Muslim country. And Muslims who live in Zanzibar, they're allowed to get marriage by for wife. So for for wife, they say they make hard work. To get them power, they make ginger tea and honey. They will drink it. They say all the problem goes to finish. So they use Namek, another used ginger, has a kind of aphrodisiac, a viagra for the men. Next on the tour are cloves. Cloves have been a major export crop of Zanzibar for more than 150 years. In Zanzibar, they are the king of spices. We call it cloves. It's the king of spices because it was imported by Sultan, the one from Oman. The three we are native come from Indonesia. Indonesia, they make cigarettes by using cloves. For those people who smoke, they will have a strong flavor by strong smell. Zanzibar, a long time ago, people, they smoke marijuana and we're not allowed. We made oil out of it, which is medicine good for the toothache. If we suffer by the area, take cloves, boil with the water, filter, drink it, stop it for the area. The viney plant, is this the spices? Now it's the really season. You can see the pod with the flower. Is this the vanilla pod? We wait to get them bigger like this size, looks yellow in color. And how long does it take to be matured? About five up to six months. And why vanilla is expensive in Zanzibar? Because they need a long work or long process. As you see from beginning, they're coming out between vanilla pod with the flower. So we wait for the flower until they get open themselves and becomes like a orchid. When they open flower inside, we must do pollination because in Madagascar, they pollinate vanilla by using butterfly, bees and other insects. Back in Zanzibar, we pollinate vanilla manually by hand. Why? Because we don't have so much of bee or butterfly. What we have to do, wake up early in the morning around 5.30. Why 5.30? Because 5.30 morning is the right time to find all the flower are open themselves. If they open the flower vanilla, soon you have to pollinate. When you come very late, because the flower, when they get sunrise, they will fall down by itself. So you did it in pollinate and vanilla pod, it will never get bigger. Coffee beans. In Zanzibar, many of these spices are used not only for cooking or for medicinal purposes, but to make a tasty signature coffee Zanzibar coffee. Zanzibar coffee, we mix by different kind of spices in order to have a different flavor. We made ginger coffee, cardamom coffee, cinnamon coffee, vanilla coffee. Have you tasted before banana coffee? No. We used to take sweet banana which is yellow. We removed the skin out. The flesh which is inside, chopped into pieces, dried to the sun. We do grind it. We made it into powder. Turkish coffee powder, cow milk which is very fresh, mixed with banana, boil it together. We go on to have a sweet coffee which is called banana coffee. Ylang Ylang is a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. It's used for alleviating anxiety and lowering blood pressure. But it's also known for being an ingredient in some of the most sophisticated perfumes. This French, they made perfume which is expensive and popular, which is called Chanel number 5. When I say Chanel 5, it has a mixed bit of alcohol, chemical. They put this flower to the Chanel because it is giving a strong smell. Remember that. We're Muslim. We're not allowed to drink alcohol because really that alcohol when you drink goes straight in the blood. Perfume we allowed to use any kind of perfume because we never drink it. So they stay outside of the skin, right? Remember every Friday is a special day for the Muslim. We're not allowed to go to pray by using perfume which has an alcohol or chemical. What do we do? Take flower in the yellow, boil with the water for 5 minutes, take them out of the flower, go and mix with the coconut oil, leave to the house for 2, 3 up to 4 or 5 days. Go and take off the flower, squeeze by hand, we made a pure incense oil. We use it as a perfume. We do call it Zanzibar Chanel number 0, which is smell good and nice. Then we're off to taste some fresh fruit from the farm starting with a unique climbing show. This is probably the best coconut meat that I've ever had in my life. This is great. We just watched the guy right here as he climbed the tree to get some coconut, sliced them. The water was great. The meat is great. It's just incredible. We're doing some fruit tasting right here. We just had some green oranges which was really tasty. And then we're trying some cucumber. This is watermelon and so here we call Tikiti Magi. Tikiti Magi. Tikiti means melon, Magi is water. Asante. Karibu. I believe we are going to conclude the tour here with tasting some tea masala or masala tea. And I will let Mohammed, our guide, explain to you all of the spices in this tea. I'm very excited to try. There is an inside there, cloves, leaves, lemongrass, black pepper, which is black itself, the powder. There is a cinnamon sticks or cinnamon box, lemongrass itself and vanilla. So I think our tea becomes sounds good and very tasty. With this piced cup of tea, we wrap up our adventure at the farm. See you in the next one.