End of the spice era.

Abstract

Abstract As the Dutch and English battled at home and abroad, the major trade commodities also underwent a dramatic shift. Changes in tastes and political climates in Europe caused the profitability of the spices to fall precipitously. This led the VOC and the EIC to seek new markets including cotton, coffee, opium and tea. It was in the middle of the seventeenth century that European interest in spices began to wane. In fact, there was an oversupply of pepper by mid-century, which dropped prices by about 40% compared with that which the Portuguese and then the VOC had long been able to maintain (Lunde, 2005). After a peak of seven million kilograms of pepper imported in 1670, levels fell to about three-and-a-half million kilograms in 1688 (Krondle, 2007). Pepper had lost its status as an exotic luxury in Europe and was now more or less a mundane commodity. The other spices held their high status longer, but they too began to lose their glow by the end of the seventeenth century.