Food
Where does Cloves come from?
Until colonial times, cloves grew only on a few small islands in Indonesia's Moluccas, the original “Spice Islands”, such as Ternate and Tidore. Chinese merchants sailed there to trade for them.
More Food
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Food
Peanut
📍 Southern Bolivia & NW Argentina
Peanuts were domesticated in South America, most likely in southern Bolivia or northwestern Argentina, where the most wild-like varieties still grow. The oldest known remains, about 7,600 years old, come from Peru.
Food
Maize (corn)
📍 Balsas River valley, Mexico
Corn was bred about 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte in Mexico's Balsas River valley. It was domesticated only once, then spread throughout the Americas.
Food
Tea
📍 Yunnan, southwest China
Tea drinking may have begun in China's Yunnan region, where leaves of the native tea plant were first used as medicine. Chinese legend credits the mythical ruler Shennong with discovering it.
More from Asia
Word
Curry (the word)
📍 Southern India
Curry comes from kari, a word for spiced sauce in Tamil and neighbouring South Indian languages. Portuguese traders made it caril, and English picked it up from them in the 1590s.
Word
Bungalow (the word)
📍 Bengal (India & Bangladesh)
Bungalow comes from Hindi bangla, 'Bengali', short for a low, thatched 'house in the Bengal style'. English speakers in India were using it by the 1670s.
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Invention
Bristle toothbrush
📍 China
Brushes with stiff hog bristles set in bone or bamboo handles were being used in China centuries before William Addis began mass-producing toothbrushes in England around 1780.