Spice Trivia
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58 free Spice trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free Spice trivia questions with answers. Spices moved empires, and this quiz follows them from the Malabar Coast to the supermarket rack. Fifty-two questions cover why saffron costs more than silver, what black, white and pink peppercorns really are, the bark that becomes cinnamon, the nutmeg island the Dutch swapped for Manhattan, the enslaved 12-year-old who cracked vanilla pollination, Wilbur Scoville's heat scale, the Hungarian paprika that yielded vitamin C, and why most 'wasabi' is horseradish. Easy questions ask which spice is the most expensive and where chili peppers come from; the hard ones want the compound that makes Sichuan pepper tingle, the flu drug made from star anise and the medieval price of a pound of pepper. Good for foodies, pub quizzes and anyone who has ever wondered what mace actually is. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the spices, plants and history involved, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which spice is the world's most expensive by weight?
Saffron
Saffron is the priciest spice by weight: premium grades top US$5,000 per kilogram because every thread is picked by hand from crocus flowers.
Q 02The threads of the crocus-derived spice are which part of the flower?
The stigmas and styles
The threads are the stigmas and styles, the red female parts of the crocus flower; each bloom yields only three of them.
Q 03Which country produces around 90% of the world's crocus-thread spice?
Iran
Iran grows roughly 90% of the world's crop, mostly in Khorasan province; Afghanistan is a distant second and Spain's La Mancha harvest is famous but small.
Q 04Roughly how many crocus flowers does it take to make one kilogram of the dried threads?
About 150,000
About 150,000 crocus flowers, each giving only three threads, go into one kilogram of the dried spice, which is why it is harvested by hand.
Q 05Black pepper is made from the unripe fruit of a vine native to which region?
South Asia
Piper nigrum is native to South Asia's Malabar Coast, where Roman traders were buying it two thousand years ago.
Q 06How does white pepper differ from black pepper?
It is only the seed of the ripe fruit
White pepper is only the seed of the ripe fruit: the berries are soaked and the outer flesh rubbed off, leaving a milder, paler spice.
Q 07Which country led world black pepper production in 2023 with about 30% of the total?
Vietnam
Vietnam led 2023 output with roughly 30% of the world's peppercorns, well ahead of Brazil and Indonesia.
Q 08Peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of which Egyptian pharaoh's mummy?
Ramesses II
Black peppercorns were found in the nostrils of Ramesses II, who died in 1213 BC, proof that Egypt traded with the Malabar Coast over 3,000 years ago.
Q 09Pink peppercorns are actually the fruit of what?
The berry of a cashew-family tree
The plant belongs to the Anacardiaceae, the same family as cashews and mangoes, which is why some allergy sufferers avoid them.
Q 10The heat in pepper comes mainly from which compound?
Piperine
Piperine, an alkaloid that makes up 5–9% of black pepper by weight, provides the heat; chili heat comes from the unrelated compound capsaicin.
Q 11Cinnamon is obtained from which part of the tree?
The inner bark
Cinnamon is the inner bark of Cinnamomum trees; stripped from young shoots, it curls into quills as it dries.
Q 12'True' or Ceylon cinnamon takes its name from the former name of which country?
Sri Lanka
Ceylon was the colonial name of Sri Lanka, home of Cinnamomum verum; most supermarket cinnamon is actually cassia, which carries far more coumarin.
Q 13Herodotus claimed cinnamon sticks were collected by giant what?
Birds
The 'cinnamon bird' story helped Arabian traders hide the spice's real source for centuries.
Q 21The word 'vanilla' comes from a Spanish word meaning what?
Little pod
Vainilla means 'little pod': it is the diminutive of Spanish vaina, 'sheath' or 'pod', named for the bean-like fruit.
Q 22Cloves are what part of the Syzygium aromaticum tree?
Dried flower buds
Cloves are the dried flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum, picked pink before they open; the tree is native to Indonesia's Maluku Islands.
Q 23In Indonesia, cloves are famously blended into which product?
Kretek cigarettes
Kretek cigarettes blend tobacco with ground cloves that crackle as they burn; Indonesia, the largest clove grower, smokes most of its own crop this way.
Q 14Mace is a spice made from what part of the nutmeg?
The reddish seed covering
Mace is the reddish seed covering, a lacy aril peeled off the nutmeg seed and dried separately, giving two spices from one fruit.
Q 15Under the 1667 Treaty of Breda, England gave up nutmeg island Run and kept which territory?
New Amsterdam (Manhattan)
England kept New Amsterdam (Manhattan), seized in 1664, while the Dutch kept Run; at the time a sack of nutmeg looked like the better end of the deal.
Q 16The nutmeg tree is native to which island group?
The Banda Islands
Nutmeg is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas; the Dutch East India Company waged a bloody campaign against the Bandanese in 1621 to secure a monopoly.
Q 17Eating large amounts of nutmeg can cause poisoning from which compound?
Myristicin
Myristicin, a psychoactive compound in nutmeg oil, causes the nausea, palpitations and hallucinations of nutmeg poisoning, which is why nutmeg 'highs' tend to end badly.
Q 18Vanilla comes from the seed pods of what kind of plant?
An orchid
Vanilla planifolia is a climbing orchid whose flowers open for just one day; its cured seed pods give the flavour, first cultivated by the Totonac of Veracruz.
Q 19In 1841, who discovered vanilla could be hand-pollinated, enabling cultivation outside Mexico?
A 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion
Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion, devised the thumb-and-stick pollination method in 1841, and growers worldwide adopted it.
Q 20Which island supplies, together with Indonesia, about two-thirds of the world's vanilla?
Madagascar
Madagascar, whose Sava region grows most Bourbon vanilla, and Indonesia together supply about two-thirds of world output.
Q 24Eugenol, which makes up 72-90% of clove oil, is chiefly responsible for what?
Its aroma
Dentists have long used it as a numbing antiseptic, which is why the dentist's office smells of cloves.
Q 25Chili pepper heat is measured in units named after which pharmacist, who devised the test in 1912?
Wilbur Scoville
Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacist, devised the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912, using panels of tasters who diluted extracts until the burn disappeared.
Q 26Capsicum plants, the ancestors of all chili peppers, originated in which region?
Peru and Bolivia
The wild Capsicum genus arose in Peru and Bolivia; chilies were being eaten by about 7500 BC and were domesticated in Mexico some 6,000 years ago.
Q 27Why did Columbus's crew call the fiery Capsicum fruits 'peppers'?
They were pungent like black pepper
Columbus called them pimienta because they were pungent like black pepper, the costly spice he was seeking; the misnomer stuck as the Portuguese carried chilies to Africa and Asia.
Q 28Chipotle is the smoke-dried form of which chili?
Jalapeño
A chipotle is a ripe red jalapeño that has been smoke-dried; the name comes from the Nahuatl chilpoctli, 'smoked chili'.
Q 29Which country grew nearly half of the world's chilies and peppers in 2022?
China
China grew around 16 million tonnes of green chilies and peppers in 2022, close to half the world total and far ahead of Mexico and Turkey.
Q 30In the 2020s, after the two costliest spices, which was the third most expensive by weight?
Cardamom
Cardamom, the green seed pods of a ginger relative native to the Western Ghats, ranked third by price in the 2020s; every pod is picked by hand just before it ripens.