Spice trade Spice trade The spice trade refers to the trade between historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, and turmeric were known and used in antiquity for commerce in the Eastern World. These spices found their way into the Middle East before the beginning of the Christian era, where the true sources of these spices were withheld by the traders and associated with fantastic tales. Early writings and stone age carvings of neolithic age obtained indicates that India's southwest coastal port Muziris, in Kerala, had established itself as a major spice trade
Cassia wine is also a traditional gift for birthdays in China. It is also considered a medicinal wine in traditional Chinese medicine. Li Shizhen's "Compendium of" Materia Medica credits sweet osmanthus with "curing the hundred diseases" and "raising the spirit". Within China, cassia wine is associated with Xi'an and Guizhou, but production now occurs throughout China, including Beijing and at the Hong Jiang Winery in Hunan. Despite the name, the Chinese cassia tree is not used to flavor cassia wine. References to the osmanthus in Chinese literature and poetry are often translated as "cassia" because both trees were formerly known in China