Growing global
Still growing kai lan in your backyard? Be inspired to do more by four Singaporeans who have started their own farms overseas.
Add BT as a preferred source
Tay Suan Chiang
SPICE GUY
TUCKED in a shelf in Dempsey's COMO Marketplace - which curates artisanal food products from Asia - is a range of Kampot peppercorns from Cambodia, promising to do for pepper what Himalayan pink sea salt has done for table salt. Available in white, pink and black, the Kampot peppercorn is the latest in trendy seasonings, with a delicate flavour profile that's slightly sweet with a lingering finish, not the one-note nose tickling variety.
What you don't expect is that Kampot pepper is owned by Singaporean Lai Poon Piau, a former civil servant wanting to re-connect with his farming heritage. His grandfather and father were rubber and oil palm plantation owners in Malacca, while his cousins are third-generation plantation owners in Johor. He spent his childhood playing on his father's rubber plantation.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
