Zanzibar Spice Tour Guide: The Original Spice Island

Why Zanzibar Became the Spice Island

The spice tour makes far more sense once you know the history the plantations grew out of. Zanzibar’s clove empire began in 1832, when Sultan Seyyid Said moved his Omani capital from Muscat to Zanzibar and mandated large-scale planting of clove trees, a crop originally smuggled out of Indonesia’s Maluku (Spice) Islands. The island’s hot, humid climate and rich soil turned out to be ideal.

The scale that followed is staggering. By the 1870s Zanzibar and its sister island Pemba supplied well over 80% of the world’s cloves, exporting on the order of 8,000+ metric tons annually by 1873. This wealth, built alongside the darker ivory and slave trades, is exactly what funded the merchant mansions and carved doors you see in Stone Town.

Today Indonesia and Madagascar out-produce it by volume, but Pemba is still regarded as growing some of the finest cloves on earth. Understanding this matters on the ground: when a guide hands you a clove bud, you are holding the single crop that reshaped an entire island’s economy, architecture, and cuisine. Ask your guide to point out the difference between the older Kizimbani estate trees and younger family plantings, the living timeline is right there.

What You Actually See, Smell, and Taste

A good spice tour is a full sensory workshop, not a stroll. Most farms sit in the Kizimbani and Kidichi villages inland, and a knowledgeable guide walks you plant by plant, crushing leaves and scraping bark so you can identify each spice blind. Expect to encounter:

• Cloves — the star crop, picked as unopened pink flower buds before they dry brown.
• Cinnamon — peeled live from the bark; you also chew the root, which tastes startlingly of Vicks VapoRub.
• Nutmeg & mace — one fruit yielding two spices, the nut wrapped in a bright red lacy web (mace).
• Vanilla — hand-pollinated orchid vines, the reason real vanilla is so costly.
• Turmeric, ginger, cardamom, black pepper, lemongrass, and ylang-ylang, whose flower is used in Chanel No. 5.

The tour usually finishes with two highlights. First, a fruit tasting of whatever is in season — jackfruit, starfruit, custard apple, and small sweet Zanzibari bananas. Second, the young farm workers (often called “spice boys”) weave crowns, rings, and glasses from palm fronds and may scale a coconut palm to cut you fresh madafu to drink. Many farms end with a spice-rich Swahili lunch cooked in the on-site kitchen.

Costs, Getting There, and Practical Tips

Here is what the listings rarely spell out clearly. The farms sit roughly 15–20 km northeast of Stone Town, about a 30-minute drive, and the walking tour itself runs 2 to 3 hours. Book it as a half-day and pair it with Stone Town or the Kidichi Persian baths ruins nearby.

• Price: group spice-farm tours start around $10–40 per person; a private tour with round-trip transport for two runs closer to $200, or about $240 combined with Stone Town. Confirm whether hotel transfer is included, as it is priced by distance from your resort.
• Tipping: carry small Tanzanian shilling notes. You may be expected to tip the guide, an assistant, and the coconut climber separately, so budget a few dollars each and cash for buying spices at the end.
• Dress: these are working villages — women should cover shoulders and knees, men avoid going shirtless. Wear closed comfortable shoes for uneven, sometimes muddy ground.
• Bring: a hat, sunscreen, water, and DEET repellent — the shaded plantations hold mosquitoes, and malaria is present year-round on the island.

The spices you buy on the farm are fresher and cheaper than the Stone Town shops, so save your shopping for the end of the walk.

Frequently Asked Questions