You can recognise Georgian food by its smell: coriander, blue fenugreek, walnuts, garlic and sweet-sour tkemali. Spices are one of the best souvenirs from Georgia — light, cheap and the easiest way to recreate the taste of your trip at home. Here is what to buy, how to tell good spices from bad and where to find them.

Khmeli suneli

Khmeli suneli is Georgia's best-known blend of dried herbs and spices. Every family's mix differs slightly, but it usually includes:

  • utskho suneli (blue fenugreek);
  • coriander seed;
  • dried basil and dill;
  • savory, marjoram and mint;
  • Imeretian saffron (marigold);
  • bay leaf and black pepper.

It goes into kharcho, chakhokhbili, satsivi, lobio, vegetable dishes and meat marinades. Add it to almost anything for a recognisably Caucasian flavour.

Utskho suneli

Utskho suneli is ground blue fenugreek seed. Its gentle nutty aroma is often called "the smell of Georgia". It is essential in walnut sauces, lobio, pkhali and satsivi. If you buy only one spice, make it this one — it is hard to find outside Georgia.

Imeretian saffron

Despite the name, it isn't real saffron but dried marigold petals. It gives dishes a golden colour and a light floral aroma and is a must in satsivi and many chicken and walnut dishes.

Svan salt

Svan salt is the pride of mountain Svaneti: coarse salt ground with garlic, coriander, blue fenugreek, chilli, caraway and other herbs. The result is an aromatic seasoning for everything — meat, potatoes, salads, eggs, even bread and butter.

Every Svan family has its own recipe, passed down through generations. Buy it in Mestia, at Tbilisi markets or in supermarkets. Good Svan salt is slightly moist and smells strongly of garlic and herbs.

Adjika

Georgian adjika is nothing like the tomato sauce sold under that name elsewhere. Real Megrelian adjika is a thick paste of hot pepper, garlic, coriander, blue fenugreek and salt, with no tomatoes. It comes red (dried red chillies) or green (fresh green chillies and herbs).

It is very hot. Add a little to meat, kharcho, marinades or bread. In Samegrelo people eat it with almost everything. Buy it at the market from sellers who make their own — shop versions are much plainer.

Tkemali

Tkemali is a sweet-sour sauce made from cherry plums with garlic, coriander, pennyroyal (ombalo) and chilli. It is Georgia's main sauce for meat, potatoes and chicken. It comes in three colours:

  • green — from unripe plums, sour and fresh, made in spring and early summer;
  • red — from ripe red plums, sweeter and thicker;
  • yellow — from yellow plums, mild.

Restaurants serve tkemali with mtsvadi and fried potatoes. Take a bottle home — it is a taste you will struggle to find anywhere else. Homemade market tkemali usually beats the shop version.

Satsebeli

Satsebeli is a tomato sauce with garlic, coriander, chilli and spices, sometimes with walnuts or fruit. Perfect with grilled meat.

Bazhe and walnut sauces

Bazhe is a sauce of walnuts, garlic, blue fenugreek and water or stock, the base for satsivi and many vegetable dishes. It is hard to buy ready-made, but bring walnuts and spices home and make it — it is easy.

Narsharabi

Narsharabi is a thick pomegranate sauce, sweet-sour and fragrant, served with meat and fish and used in salads and marinades. It is common on autumn tables.

Fresh herbs

Spices are only half the flavour. Georgian food is unthinkable without fresh herbs: coriander, parsley, dill, tarragon, purple basil (reyhan), spring onion and mint. Markets sell huge bunches for next to nothing, and at a feast a plate of fresh herbs is almost always on the table, eaten by hand as a side.

Where to buy spices

  • Markets. Dezerter and Navtlughi markets in Tbilisi; central markets in Kutaisi, Batumi and Zugdidi. Spices are sold loose from big sacks, so you can smell and taste them.
  • Mestia and Svaneti — for Svan salt.
  • Supermarkets — for packaged sets.
  • Spice shops in Old Tbilisi — pricier, but with gift packaging.

How to choose good spices

  • Smell. Fresh spices smell strong; a weak or dusty aroma means they are old.
  • Colour. Utskho suneli should be greenish-yellow and Imeretian saffron orange, not brown.
  • Buy whole seeds if you can: coriander and fenugreek keep their aroma longer, and you can grind them at home.
  • Bargain a little at the market, within reason.

Typically 100 g of spices cost 2–5 lari at the market, a jar of Svan salt 3–8 lari and a bottle of tkemali 5–12 lari.

Getting them home

Dry spices can go in hand luggage. Tkemali, adjika and other sauces in glass go in checked baggage, well wrapped. Ask for loose spices to be double-bagged so your suitcase doesn't smell of fenugreek for months.

In short

To take the taste of Georgia home, buy utskho suneli, khmeli suneli, Imeretian saffron, Svan salt and a bottle of tkemali. With these and some fresh coriander you can cook lobio, kharcho and Georgian-style meat in your own kitchen.