Green Cardamom

Cardamom capsules are picked slightly immature, and the timing is set by a defect rather than by ripeness. Left to ripen fully, the capsule splits open on the plant — and a split capsule is a downgraded capsule, because it has stopped being a sealed container and its seeds are exposed to the air. Since capsules on a single shoot mature unevenly, the crop is picked over repeatedly by hand across a season, taking only what is ready.

Curing then has to accomplish two things that pull in opposite directions. The capsule must be dried enough to be stable, but it must stay green while it happens — and green is exactly what chlorophyll does not do when it is heated, lit, or dried slowly. Cardamom curing is therefore a controlled operation in a way that many spice dryings are not: capsules are cured in flue-cured or electric drying houses at moderate, controlled heat and away from direct sun, because open sun-drying, straightforward and cheap as it is for chillies or pepper, bleaches cardamom to a pale straw colour and destroys most of its value.

Cardamom grades are built on colour and size. Depth and uniformity of green comes first, then capsule size — bold, large capsules command a premium and are sorted by screening — followed by volatile oil content, which carries the aroma, and the proportion of splits, empty, malformed, and immature capsules in the lot. Grade names are origin-specific and often refer to a producing region or a screen size rather than to any universal scale.

• Bleached or yellowed capsules from sun exposure or poorly controlled curing
• Split and open capsules that no longer seal the seeds
• Immature and shrivelled capsules, light and poorly filled
• Empty capsules with little or no seed inside
• Loss of volatile oil from over-drying, age, or storage in the open
• Extraneous matter — stalks, husk fragments, and foreign material
• Mould on inadequately dried lots

Two of the defects here are really the same event seen from different sides. A split capsule fails on appearance and loses aroma, because the split is both a visual defect and the breach of the seal that was keeping the volatile oil in. That is the logic that runs through cardamom grading: the husk’s condition is a proxy for what has happened to the seeds inside, which the buyer cannot see.

Cured cardamom is a dry, ambient-stable commodity that ships in bags, cartons, and containers without refrigeration, but it is a decaying asset in two respects at once. The green fades — pigments degrade with light, heat, and time, so a lot loses grade value in store even when nothing goes wrong with it — and the volatile oil escapes gradually, taking the aroma with it. Cardamom is therefore stored sealed, cool, and dark, and lots are traded with an eye on age in a way that a more inert spice would not be.

Both problems explain why the commodity moves whole and why the trade resists grinding it early. The intact husk is a natural barrier holding the seeds’ oils in place, and ground cardamom loses aroma quickly once that barrier is gone — so the capsule is sold as-is, and grinding happens close to use. As a dried spice cardamom carries the same standing requirement to be adequately dried and kept dry, since inadequately dried or rewetted lots support moulds like any tropical dried commodity.