ABOUT SPICE EXOTICA
Being as old as trade itself, the spice world is full of myths and recycled folklore. Online and even in print, much of what you'll find is misleading, incomplete, or just wrong. No wonder: spices sit at the crossroads of culture, cuisine, medicine, science, and history.
We verify our research against primary sources to structure accurate information in a useful way: what spices and herbs are, how they work, and how to use them in your cooking and everyday life. The spice world is richer, stranger, and more interesting than most people know.
The same issues run through the trade itself. Buyers often can’t find the right spice from the right origin, and good suppliers can't find the buyers who want what they have. We help both.
FOUNDER
Tom Hogan
Spice Exotica was founded by Tom Hogan in 2023.
Before this, he spent seven years in advertising technology, entering new markets and building business from scratch. He later co-founded a social impact organization. With his partner, he grew it to over 250 people and built the recurring partnerships that took it into the top 1% of US nonprofits by revenue.
His work brought him to 45 countries. Enjoying the local cuisines wherever he went, a question kept coming back.
How can food be so wildly different yet so delicious from one place to the next?
There are many answers: ingredients, agriculture, technique, tools, climate, culture. But one kept appearing at the center of the story. Spice.
Fascination became passion. The deeper he went, the more he realized that the comprehensive reference he was looking for didn’t exist, especially not online. Reliable information was scattered across botanical databases, scientific literature, academic papers, trade publications, and old cookbooks and encyclopedias.
Spice Exotica’s Compendium, World Map, and Spice Insights are what he wanted when he started. They are continually updated and perpetually free educational resources for all.
But reading only gets you so far. The real journey begins once you go looking for the spice. Tracking down the best from the right origin was surprisingly hard, especially those hard-to-find ones often called "exotica." He saw the same thing across the industry. Over time, this expanded into a suite of consultative sourcing services.
THE MISSION
Today, Spice Exotica is building around a simple idea:
to make the world of spice understandable and accessible.