Spice Trivia
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107 free Spice trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 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 107 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 because every thread is picked by hand from crocus flowers; at times it has been worth more than its weight in gold.
Q 02The threads of the crocus-derived spice are which part of the flower?
The stigmas and styles
The stigmas and styles, the red female parts of the crocus flower, are the threads; each bloom has only three, so they have to be plucked out by hand.
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 the Khorasan region; Spain, home of the protected La Mancha threads, grows only a tiny share.
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 go into one kilogram of the dried spice, because each bloom gives only three threads, every one picked by hand.
Q 05Black pepper is the dried fruit of a vine thought to be native to which region?
South Asia
Piper nigrum is thought to be 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
It 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; pepper became one of its main export crops after market reforms opened up its farm trade.
Q 08Peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of which Egyptian pharaoh's mummy?
Ramesses II
Ramesses II, who died in 1213 BC, had his nostrils packed with peppercorns and resin by his embalmers, probably to help his prominent nose keep its shape.
Q 09Pink peppercorns are actually what?
The berry of a cashew-family tree
The berry of a cashew-family tree, the Peruvian or Brazilian pepper tree, is sold as pink peppercorns; it is no relation of black pepper, though the two are often blended together.
Q 10The heat in black pepper comes mainly from which compound?
Piperine
Piperine, an alkaloid, gives black pepper its bite; light turns it into tasteless forms, so pepper left in the light slowly loses its heat.
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
Birds, Herodotus wrote, built cliff nests from cinnamon sticks; Arabians left out chunks of ox meat, and the nests broke under the weight when the birds carried it up.
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 which part of the clove tree?
Dried flower buds
Dried flower buds, picked by hand before they open, are what we call cloves; the name comes from the Latin for 'nail', after their shape.
Q 23In Indonesia, cloves are famously blended into which product?
Kretek cigarettes
Kretek cigarettes blend tobacco with ground cloves that crackle as they burn; the United States has banned their sale since 2009, along with other flavoured cigarettes.
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 and renamed New York, while the Dutch kept Run and with it their grip on the world's nutmeg.
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 fruit of what kind of plant?
An orchid
An orchid, the climbing vine Vanilla planifolia, bears the fruit; each flower lasts only about a day, so growers have to check their vines daily.
Q 19On which island did Edmond Albius, an enslaved 12-year-old, devise vanilla's quick hand-pollination method in 1841?
Réunion
Réunion is where Edmond Albius lifted the flap inside each flower with a thin stick and pressed the pollen across with his thumb, a method still used today.
Q 20Which island is the world's largest producer of vanilla?
Madagascar
Madagascar grows more vanilla than any other country; so far from the plant's native Mexico, every flower there has to be pollinated by hand.
Q 24Eugenol, the main compound in clove oil, is chiefly responsible for what?
Its aroma
Its aroma: eugenol gives cloves their scent, and it numbs too, which is why clove oil is an old toothache remedy and dentists still use eugenol in dental cement.
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 26Which chili, also known as bhut jolokia, did Guinness certify as the world's hottest in 2007?
Ghost pepper
Ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, took the record from the Red Savina habanero in 2007; India's army has since packed it into chili grenades that work like tear gas.
Q 27Why did Columbus's crew call the chilies they found 'peppers'?
They were pungent like black pepper
They were pungent like black pepper, the costly spice Columbus had sailed to find, and the name stuck as Portuguese and Spanish traders carried chilies on to Africa and Asia.
Q 28Chipotle is the smoke-dried form of which chili?
Jalapeño
Jalapeños are usually picked green; those left to ripen red are smoke-dried into chipotles, a way of keeping chilies the Aztecs are thought to have used.
Q 29Which country grew about 40% of the world's fresh chilies and peppers in 2024?
China
China grew about 39% of the world's fresh chilies and peppers in 2024, though the plants only reached East Asia from the Americas in the late 1500s.
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 plant from the moist forests of southern India, ranked third by price in the 2020s; the pods are picked just before they ripen, then dried.