Around the world in seven plants

We begin in the [[amazon-basin|Amazon Basin]], where Indigenous peoples of the upper Amazon domesticated the cacao tree from wild *Theobroma cacao* between four and five thousand years ago. The seeds — bitter, fermented, ground, drunk hot with chiles and vanilla — were the prestige drink of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica long before Spanish ships carried cacao to Europe and the world came to know it as chocolate. The Amazon is where the seed comes from. The basin is what we visit first.

↓ south to

South to the [[central-andes|Central Andes]] — the steepest stack of climatic life zones on Earth, and the cradle of the potato. Andean farmers maintain ~4,000 documented potato cultivars in their living fields, plus another ~150 wild *Solanum* relatives in the surrounding ecosystems. When the Spanish carried potatoes back to Europe in the 1500s, they took a few cultivars from a single zone of a single valley. The Andes hold the genetic depth that any future potato crisis will draw on. The tuber is more than the tuber here.

↓ east across the Atlantic to

East to the [[mediterranean-basin|Mediterranean Basin]] — domesticated olive trees, *Olea europaea*, have grown around this sea for six thousand years. The Mediterranean is one of only five Mediterranean-climate regions on Earth: wet winters, hot dry summers, a sclerophyll evergreen flora that the olive itself epitomizes. Olive oil is the through-line of every Mediterranean cuisine from Iberia to the Levant, and the basin is the source of essentially all of it. Wherever olive oil is poured, this bioregion is in the kitchen.

↓ east to the cradle

Further east to the [[fertile-crescent|Fertile Crescent]] — the arc spanning Israel, Lebanon, Syria, southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran. This is where humans first sat down with a wild grass and decided to plant it on purpose, twelve thousand years ago. Einkorn and emmer wheat, the founder grains, spread from here across Europe and North Africa and ultimately reached every continent. Every loaf of bread that has ever been baked, anywhere, descends from this region.

↓ south to the monsoon mountains

South and east to the [[western-ghats|Western Ghats]] of southern India — a 1,600 km mountain chain that catches the southwest monsoon and turns it into rainforest. *Piper nigrum* is native here, a vine of the wet evergreen forest, and the Western Ghats are the original source of the black pepper that the Romans paid in silver for, that the Portuguese sailed for, that the Dutch and English built imperial trading companies around. Pepper is one of the most-traded commodities in human history. Its center is still here.

↓ east to the great river

Further east to the [[yangtze-basin|Yangtze Basin]] — the drainage of Asia's longest river, where tea cultivation began in the upper-Yangtze Yunnan-Sichuan border region and spread eastward across China and from there to Japan, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, and the world. *Camellia sinensis* is the most-drunk leaf on Earth after water itself. The Yangtze gave the world the practice.

↓ northeast across the sea

Northeast to the [[korean-peninsula|Korean Peninsula]] — a mountainous peninsula whose distinctive culinary tradition is built on fermentation, and whose signature winter vegetable is the long white daikon radish. *Kkakdugi* (cubed daikon kimchi), *kimjang* (the autumn communal preparation), and the broader *jang* tradition (soybean pastes and sauces fermented for years) are inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Around the world in seven plants ends here — the same continent we started on the opposite shore of, six steps and four continents later.