The Tamesis
Diaspora Spice Co. is a spice company that works directly with South Asian farmers, and its story begins with turmeric.
In 2016, Sana Javeri Kadri was a college graduate living in San Francisco and she kept seeing golden lattes on cafe menus around town. She grew up drinking hot turmeric milk in Mumbai, and was shocked when suddenly her grandmother’s go-to anti-inflammatory drink became a health trend in the U.S. (and “on sale for $8”). She began to wonder who was growing turmeric to feed this booming craze, and began telling the story of the South Asian turmeric farmers behind Golden Milk.
“I think the world should know where their turmeric comes from,” Qadri told Fashion, Thinking back to her goals at the time.
This led her to the Indian Institute of Spices, where she met scientist Dr. Prasath, who introduced her to an heirloom turmeric variety called Pragati Turmeric, the best turmeric variety she had ever tasted. He connected her with the Kasaraneni family in Andhra Pradesh, one of the farms growing the variety, and she visited soon after. She came home with a suitcase full of turmeric and dreamed of bringing this amazing variety of spice to market. In 2017, she founded Diaspora Spice Co.
“The hope of Diaspora is: How can we build the most ideal, fairest, happiest, gayest pocket in the world where we can sell really beautiful, delicious spices?” Kadri said. “It all started with one man, one farmer, and one spice.” Nearly nine years later, they have grown significantly. “Now there are about 30 people, 140 farmers, about 40 spices,” Kadri said.
Turmeric also played a big role in bringing recipe developer Asha Loupy on board. She discovered Diaspora’s turmeric while working as a specialty grocery buyer and was shocked.
“Turmeric didn’t have that strong a flavor to me until I tasted this. It’s citrusy, earthy, bright, vibrant and truly shocking,” Lupi said. She started cooking dishes with turmeric and tagged Diaspora and Kadri on Instagram. Qadri noticed. “Asha made the cumin lamb dumplings with homemade turmeric crust, so it was like bright marigold yellow and perfect little wrinkles. And I was like, who is that? I want to eat everything she makes. “
