Spice & Tea Merchants

Spice & Tea Merchants

Falmouth has a wonderful new shop where one can buy spices, teas and gifts from around the world. It is the Spice & Tea Merchants at 245 Main Street and is located less that a ten minute walk from the Palmer House Inn. Browsing through this store is truly like stepping back hundreds of years in time. It takes the shopper back to the days when sailing ships traveled the earth’s oceans in search of spices, teas and exotic items.

Spice & Tea Merchants shop

Spice & Tea Merchants

There are history books that tell about wars that were fought to control the spice routs. Many fortunes were made by people who imported exotic herbs. Imperial China once kept its tea hidden under lock and key in its closed kingdom. And here it all is right here in Falmouth Village for us to enjoy.

This unique store has teas from every corner of the earth. They are there for all to sample. They are also expert in advising shoppers of the benefits of tea.  With over 175 different teas that include green, white, black and oolong blends, chamomile, pu-erh, hibiscus, rooibos and turmeric teas

There is a “Spice of the month Club”, that patrons can join. In addition to the spices and teas there is an assortment of Chocolates and cocoa. Their collection includes Taza Mexican chocolate  Cocoa Niles and Dulched Cocoa powder in addition to the exotic Siena Cocoa powder.

Vanilla Display, Spice & Tea Merchants

Vanilla Display

Extracts are also featured. They have almond, chocolate, coffee and orange extracts, to name but a few. They also have a variety of top quality vanilla extracts that come from Madagascar, Mexico and Tahiti.

To celebrate autumn they are featuring the fall spices, rubs and dried fruits. Those featured are Vietnamese cinnamon, clove & cinnamon blend sugars, dried cranberries and cranberry & maple rub. They are also have mulling cider and pumpkin pie spices. There is also a savory nut seasoning and a dried spiced plum herb blend. The list goes on to include a sumptuous  pumpkin chowder mix.

Shoppers will also find a wide variety of grains and pastas, such as Stanish rice & orzo, Middle Eastern couscous, Flax seed, Mediterranean orzo, orzo porcini, sweet potato orzo in addition to black, golden and red quinoa. In the rice category, one can find brown Basmate rice, carmague French rice, Chinese black rice, Rice gaba, green bamboo rice, red Himalayan rice, pican rice and purple sticky rice. Saffron and Thai jasmine rices are also available.

Wooden elephant, Spice & Tea Merchants

Wooden elephant.

In the unique gifts category, there is a beautiful display of “Himalayan Pink Salt Slab” products. Last summer when one of our daughters was visiting from California, she became enamored with the concept of of cooking and serving on these unique slabs. She thought that it was a bit to much to spend at the beginning of an extensive summer vacation. I remembered her interest, however, and when their anniversary arrived in September, I bought one of the round slabs and a book with the history of the slabs and how to use them.  She was thrilled with the gift. Because they live in southern California, they can use the slab on their grill year round.