Indigo

Indigo is a flowering shrub growing to between one and two metres high, which produces both decorative flowers and an edible legume, though it is grown primarily as a cash crop for the dye that can be manufactured from its leaves. The leaves are reduced to a mash in water which is then fermented with sugar to produce a dark blue dye. This is the only viable source of particularly dark blue pigments available to the Eleven Cities, and therefore a valuable trade good.
The difficulty is that very few places in the vicinity of the Eleven Cities possess the humid, warm climate the shrub requires to flourish in any significant quantities. Only the narrow fertile strip along the northern coast of the Empty Quarter provides the conditions that allow the plant to thrive. This means that the northern cities of Oluz and Halumay share, between them, a practical duopoly on a sought-after luxury good. Though both cities are diversified mercantile ports with various industries, the indigo trade makes up a large proportion of their income, providing productive employment for many of their inhabitants. Were merchants in other ports to develop a method of producing their own indigo dye, Oluz and Halumay would likely suffer damaging economic contractions. Thankfully for them this seems unlikely; attempts to cultivate the plant as a cash crop on the Alluvial plain have repeatedly failed to produce enough material to justify the substantial amount of arable land it requires. Many of the southern peasantry are also deeply suspicious of the bush, for reasons they have not yet made clear to merchants suggesting they alter their planting habits.
Indigo finds buyers in most of the other cities but is particularly sought-after in Pholyos, and particularly during the summer, when the populace there begin preparation for the Blue Nights. This festival requires that blue clothing be worn and it is considered good form for this garb to be freshly dyed. Pholyan cloth-dyers have become very skilled in their use of indigo, being able to water the dye down to greater or lesser extents to produce a striking variety of depths of colour, often within the same garment. They remain dependent on the northern trade for their raw material, however. Indigo thus makes up a goodly proportion of the commerce between the two regions, with northern farmers pruning leaves from their crops in the spring in order to meet southern demand later in the year.
The legumes of the indigo plant are small, fibrous, and to many palates unpleasantly bitter, and thus have only margnal value as a food crop. Cooks in Halumay do use them to lend an astringent element to their cooking, however, so there is a modest domestic demand.

Type

Organic