What the Spice Routes Actually Tasted Like

Before the word "spice" meant a shaker on a restaurant table, it meant a trade route that ran through seven countries, altered the economies of three continents, and built cities that still stand in Zanzibar's Stone Town.

The clove. The cardamom. The black pepper. These were not flavors. They were currencies. They were the reason Portuguese ships sailed past the Cape of Good Hope and why Swahili coastal culture developed the particular sophistication it did — the architecture, the cuisine, the music, the textile traditions. A sophistication that most of the world still doesn't know how to name properly because it was never invited into the conversation at the table that did the naming.

Washington D.C. is home to 177 embassies. The largest African-born population in America. A city that has always understood, at some cellular level, what it means to carry more than one identity into the same room. To be from a place the room has never heard of and to know that the place is extraordinary regardless.

We've been thinking about that city and those trade routes and what it would look like if they shared an evening. What the cocktails would taste like. What the music would sound like. What conversations would happen in a room designed around the premise that culture is most alive when you're inside it rather than looking at it from a respectful distance.

We're working on something in D.C. We're not ready to say more than that. But the research has been delicious.