Cardamom: The spice enhances your coffee and boosts health

Many people make morning coffee an integral part of their day. Its flavour can be enriched with various additions, such as cinnamon, honey, or cocoa. Cardamom is particularly noteworthy—a spice with beneficial properties that pairs perfectly with coffee. It's worth getting to know its amazing benefits.

Cardamom is a plant in the ginger family. It is native to tropical regions of Asia, mainly India and Sri Lanka. The plant features an underground rhizome from which long, slender stems grow. Elongated, lance-shaped leaves can grow on these stems and reach considerable sizes.

The most valuable herbal raw material of cardamom is the seeds found in elliptical fruits. These fruits, also known as pods, contain small, dark seeds used both in cooking and traditional medicine. Cardamom seeds are known for their intense, aromatic fragrance and spicy flavour, making them a popular ingredient in many dishes and beverages.

Cardamom is available both whole and in powder form. It contains, among others, vitamin C, B vitamins, iron, calcium, sodium, magnesium, zinc, phosphorus, potassium, and essential oils. These ingredients give cardamom antiviral, antibacterial, warming, anti-inflammatory, and antispasmodic properties. One of the main advantages of this spice is its beneficial effect on the digestive system.

Cardamom supports the production of digestive juices and helps in treating indigestion, chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, and cardiovascular ailments.

Scientists from Florida A&M University have shown that cardamom may have therapeutic potential not only in intestinal inflammations but also in advanced colon cancer.

Thanks to its anti-cancer properties, cardamom can be a valuable part of the diet for patients with breast and prostate cancers. Additionally, cardamom's substances strengthen the body's immunity to seasonal infections and help treat inflammatory conditions of the upper respiratory tract.

Cardamom stands out with its lemon-ginger aroma and spicy taste, making it wonderfully warm. Therefore, it is a popular addition to coffee, especially in Turkey, but it is also gaining many followers worldwide. Furthermore, cardamom is used in the kitchen as an addition to tea, cocktails, sweet pastries, meat dishes, and rice dishes.