Cubebenes are a pair of chemical compounds, classified as sesquiterpenes, first isolated from Piper cubeba berries, known as cubebs. The volatile oil from the distillation of cubebs is a pale green or blue-yellow viscous liquid with a warm woody, slightly camphoraceous odor consisting of cubebene which comes in two forms, α- and β-cubebene, both with the molecular formula C15H24. They differ only in the position of a double bond which is endocyclic (part of the five-membered ring) in α-cubebene, but exocyclic in β-cubebene.
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A jong has about 1:3 to 1:4 beam to length ratio, which makes it fell to the category of "round ship". Barbosa also reported various goods carried by these ships, which include rice, meat of cows, sheep, pigs, and deer, dried and salted, many chickens, garlic, and onions. Traded weapons include lances, dagger, and swords, worked in inlaid metal and very good steel. Also brought with them cubebs and yellow die called cazumba (kasumba) and gold which is produced in Java.
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Kitchen gardens provided herbs, including some, such as tansy, rue, pennyroyal, and hyssop, which are rarely used today. Spices were treasured and very expensive at that time – they included pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Some spices used then, but no longer today in French cuisine are cubebs, long pepper (both from vines similar to black pepper), grains of paradise, and galengale. Sweet-sour flavors were commonly added to dishes with vinegars and verjus combined with sugar (for the affluent) or honey.
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Commonly used ingredients include cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, dry ginger, chili peppers, coriander seed, peppercorn, sweet and hot paprika, fenugreek, and dry turmeric. Some spices may be particular to the region, such as ash berries, chufa, grains of paradise, orris root, monk's pepper, cubebs, dried rosebud, fennel seed or aniseed, galangal, long pepper. Ingredients may be toasted before being ground or pounded in a mortar and mixed together. Some preparations include salt or sugar, but that is generally not the accepted practice.
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A Victorian advertisement for Dr. Perrin's Medicated Cubeb Cigarettes Cubeb was frequently used in the form of cigarettes for asthma, chronic pharyngitis, and hay fever. Edgar Rice Burroughs, being fond of smoking cubeb cigarettes, humorously stated that if he had not smoked so many cubebs, there might never have been Tarzan. Marshall's Prepared Cubeb Cigarettes was a popular brand, with enough sales to still be made during World War II.. In 2000, cubeb oil was included in the list of ingredients found in cigarettes, published by the Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch of North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services. Bombay Sapphire gin is flavored with botanicals including cubeb and grains of paradise.
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The islands the accounts referred to produced camphor, aloes, sandal-wood, spices like cloves, nutmegs, cardamom and cubebs, as well as ivory, gold and tin, all of which equalled the wealth of the Maharaja to any king in India.Marwati Djoened Poesponegoro, Nugroho Notosusanto, (1992), Sejarah nasional Indonesia: Jaman kuna, PT Balai Pustaka, The Srivijayan government centralized the sourcing and trading of native and foreign goods in “warehouses” which streamlined the trade process by making a variety of products easily accessible in one area. Ceramics were a major trade commodity between Srivijaya and China with shard artifacts found along the coast of Sumatra and Java. It is assumed that China and Srivijaya may have had an exclusive ceramics trade relationship because particular ceramic shards can only be found at their point of origin, Guangzhou, or in Indonesia, but nowhere else along the trade route.
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In the world of commerce, Srivijaya rose rapidly to be a far-flung empire controlling the two passages between India and China, namely the Sunda Strait from Palembang and the Malacca Strait from Kedah. Arab accounts stated that the empire of the maharaja was so vast that in two years the swiftest vessel could not travel round all its islands, which produced camphor, aloes, cloves, sandalwood, nutmegs, cardamom and cubebs, ivory, gold and tin, making the maharaja as rich as any king in India.Marwati Djoened Poesponegoro, Nugroho Notosusanto, (1992), Sejarah nasional Indonesia: Jaman kuna, PT Balai Pustaka, Other than fostering the lucrative trade relations with India and China, Srivijaya also established commerce link with the Arabian Peninsula. A messenger sent by Maharaja Sri Indravarman delivered his letter for Caliph Umar ibn AbdulAziz of Ummayad in 718 and was returned to Srivijaya with Zanji (black female slave from Zanj), the Caliph's present for maharaja.
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