Popularly known as ‘Queen of Spices’ as opposed to Black Pepper hailed as ‘King of Spice’, Cardamom, sometimes spelt as cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera Elettaria and Amomum in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. 

In Sri Lanka cardamom is found in the agro ecological regions of the wet and intermediate zones of up country. Kandy, Matale, Kegalle, Nuwara Eliya, Rathnapura and a part of Galle are the major growing districts.