Blog

Every year we organize a Czech pepper expedition and take our colleagues, customers, and friends to the farms. This year's expedition was once again "shocking". At the end of the day, we asked what surprised them the most about working with Kampot pepper. Terezka "You have to wait 4 years for the pepper plant to grow! That's incredible patience. Moreover, since it is organic, it's insanely sensitive.""Most farms still draw water from irrigation ponds by hand with buckets, walking kilometers, and yet everyone remains positive and smiling." Aničk "I came thinking it would be like blueberries, but the pepper is 4 meters tall!""Red pepper is terribly tricky! After all, you have to pick it berry by berry because each berry ripens at a different time." Martina "This is my second time here. I really like seeing that farms have finally started to expand and plant new plants. When we first arrived, the farms were dying." Nikola "I was surprised how little pepper you get from the hard work of one plant in a year! I calculated it, and this field provides the whole family with only about 200 kg of pepper." Jana "I was shocked that from just one green pepper berry, all types of Kampot peppers result, and that the taste is just a matter of ripening time. And that therefore, the white pepper is the most demanding of all because you pick it berry by berry last and it still has to be peeled."

Once again, after a year, a Czech expedition came to Cambodia to discover the beauties of Cambodia and spend time on our farms with Kampot pepper.To show them the best of Cambodia, we immediately set off from the airport to our friendly school, Kohchann Primary School, for a welcome. We had an important task – to hand over the money that we raised thanks to you and thanks to SIA Restaurant for the construction of a new library for the school!In total, we raised 2000 dollars, the much-needed amount for the completion of the building named SMART LIBRARY.We have been supporting the school since 2015, when it had only a few dozen students, classes were held in a wooden gazebo, and the children did not yet have uniforms.Today, the school has around 400 students and is doing very well.The welcome for the group was magnificent. The children sang, danced, played musical instruments, and had prepared for us Cambodian krama – traditional scarves that locals wear as the most important part of their clothing. Each member of the expedition was given a drawing by the children, and then we were led in a procession to the library.“Here we are building right next to the new building, it will be four classrooms in total,” the principal Makara proudly said.After the library, there was a photo session and the wiping away of the first tears of the newcomers, then we were invited to a traditional apsara dance, which is protected by UNESCO, and the children performed it for us in several variations.After this beautiful show, to which we were invited so they could teach us the dance, we handed over the last Czech gifts – mainly musical instruments and Czech memory games.After the official handover of the gift, we all began preparing to leave – the children have a break between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., when they go home by bike for lunch. Filled with emotions, we said our final goodbye with a bow and a loud “sok sabaj! ” which means “take care! ” and set off back with the group.

On the day of our departure, we were featured in the Khmer Times - the most popular English-language daily newspaper in Cambodia, and our work was covered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On Valentine's Day in Cambodia we handed over Czech machines (for vacuuming and lyophilisation) from Zlín to representatives of the Kampot Pepper Association and the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Phnom Penh to farmers as part of our development project with the Czech Development Agency.