- The Intention
- The Ingredients
- The Ritual
- The Diaspora Story
The Diaspora team taste-tested 9 different peppers from some of the best farms and estates across the country, and this one won out by far. She's like a beautiful red wine - complex, layered, and deserves to be savored. Grown on the Parameswaran family farm, where Parameswaran and his son Akash have been naturally farming pepper for over 35 years, amidst passion fruit, tigers (no, really!), and the largest collection of bamboo and palm varieties in the region! Their Aranya pepper is vine ripened and hand harvested with the utmost care to ensure maximum flavor and tastiness. This incredible black pepper truly makes every meal feel like a special occasion.
1.87oz
Organic black pepper
Use in dishes + recipes as desired.
The original intent of colonial conquest of the Indian subcontinent was a desire for domination of the spice trade. 400ish years later, as a young woman born and raised in postcolonial Mumbai, working at the intersection of food and culture, Sana Javeri Kadri was slowly discovering that not much about that system had changed. Farmers made no money, spices changed hands upwards of 10 times before reaching the consumer, and the final spice on your shelf was usually an old, dusty shadow of what it once was.
So in 2016, Sana booked a one way ticket home to Mumbai and signed herself up for 7 months of highly unpaid market research, 40+ farm visits, endless un-answered phone calls, a squishy motorbike ride through rice paddy, and one life-changing meeting with the good folks at the Indian Institute of Spices Research.
A lot of processing of doubts and fears later, 23 year old Sana founded Diaspora Co. in the fall of 2017 with just one spice - Pragati Turmeric - sourced from an equally young and idealistic farm partner - a now dear friend Mr. Prabhu Kasaraneni. But from their very first day, the big, audacious dream was to grow a radically new, decidedly delicious and truly equitable spice trade, to push a broken system into an equal exchange, and to have a lot of fun doing it.
Today, the Diaspora team sources 30 single-origin spices from 150 farms across India and Sri Lanka. They're proud to pay their farm partners an average of 6x above the commodity price. In a system where fair trade is a mere 15% premium, they pay what they believe to be a living wage - an investment in the kind of leadership and land stewardship that will build climate resilience and more delicious food systems.
The Intention
The Diaspora team taste-tested 9 different peppers from some of the best farms and estates across the country, and this one won out by far. She's like a beautiful red wine - complex, layered, and deserves to be savored. Grown on the Parameswaran family farm, where Parameswaran and his son Akash have been naturally farming pepper for over 35 years, amidst passion fruit, tigers (no, really!), and the largest collection of bamboo and palm varieties in the region! Their Aranya pepper is vine ripened and hand harvested with the utmost care to ensure maximum flavor and tastiness. This incredible black pepper truly makes every meal feel like a special occasion.
1.87oz
The Ingredients
Organic black pepper
The Ritual
Use in dishes + recipes as desired.
The Diaspora Story
The original intent of colonial conquest of the Indian subcontinent was a desire for domination of the spice trade. 400ish years later, as a young woman born and raised in postcolonial Mumbai, working at the intersection of food and culture, Sana Javeri Kadri was slowly discovering that not much about that system had changed. Farmers made no money, spices changed hands upwards of 10 times before reaching the consumer, and the final spice on your shelf was usually an old, dusty shadow of what it once was.
So in 2016, Sana booked a one way ticket home to Mumbai and signed herself up for 7 months of highly unpaid market research, 40+ farm visits, endless un-answered phone calls, a squishy motorbike ride through rice paddy, and one life-changing meeting with the good folks at the Indian Institute of Spices Research.
A lot of processing of doubts and fears later, 23 year old Sana founded Diaspora Co. in the fall of 2017 with just one spice - Pragati Turmeric - sourced from an equally young and idealistic farm partner - a now dear friend Mr. Prabhu Kasaraneni. But from their very first day, the big, audacious dream was to grow a radically new, decidedly delicious and truly equitable spice trade, to push a broken system into an equal exchange, and to have a lot of fun doing it.
Today, the Diaspora team sources 30 single-origin spices from 150 farms across India and Sri Lanka. They're proud to pay their farm partners an average of 6x above the commodity price. In a system where fair trade is a mere 15% premium, they pay what they believe to be a living wage - an investment in the kind of leadership and land stewardship that will build climate resilience and more delicious food systems.