SPICE TRAVELS: A Spice Merchant's Voyage of Discovery

This book feels quite dated, and although I am probably not the target market, it had some short passages of interesting detail. It was published in 2002, but obviously the travel was before that - and I suspect in some cases quite a bit before.

It is basically a series of travelogue chapters which all theme around spices. The author has a shop which sells spices, and therefore travels (mostly with his wife accompanying him) to research and establish supply lines. One of the chapters outlined a ‘spice tour' the couple ran - which really established the tone for me with the travellers probably being those the book is targeted at - people who wouldn't travel independently, but would pay up to be chaperoned from airport and back again.

His visits are to interesting places - around half the chapters are travel to India - but also Mexico, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Zanzibar. There is a lot of general touristy coverage in the book, which I think detracts from the key focus, which should have been the spices, and makes the book far less interesting overall. Perhaps it works with a less travel inclined reader, as basic background, but for me it weakened that focus.

The parts where Hemphill concentrates on the people who grow the spices, the growing techniques, facts and anecdotes around the spices, etc are interesting and work well, but they are a bit too far in between.

2.5 stars, rounded up because it was still quite readable, but given the choice, I would give this one a miss.