How did Kochi become a spice port?

For two thousand years, the pepper growing on Kerala’s hills was one of the most valuable things on Earth. Romans paid for it in gold; in medieval Europe, pepper was counted by the single corn.

Kochi’s rise began with a disaster. In 1341, a great flood of the Periyar river silted up the old port of Muziris and carved out a new natural harbour at Kochi. Ships that could no longer reach Muziris came here instead.

Arab, Chinese, Jewish and later European traders followed the pepper. The Chinese fishing nets on the shore, the Portuguese fort, the Dutch palace and the Jewish synagogue in Mattancherry are all footprints of that trade.

The Portuguese arrived in 1500 looking for a sea route to pepper, and their arrival changed the history of Asia. All of it started with a vine that grows on Kerala’s trees.