Bay leaf (Cinnamomum Tamala) is an essential spice widely used in making curry in Bangladesh and all over the sub-continent. As a result, the Bay Leaf has tremendous demand in the country and in abroad.
The winter is the season of collecting Bay Leaf. Like other places of the country, traders and middlemen of Dinajpur are now busy in collecting Bay Leaf and drying those.
The fragrance of Ba Leaf vanishes in the rain, so the leaf is collected from October to March, during the dry winter season. No specific market for selling the Bay Leaf is seen in the country rather traders and the middlemen themselves visited the houses of the Bay Leaf tree owners and purchased the Bay Leaf by cutting branches of those.
In Historical Goar-e-Shahid field of Dinajpur, huge heaps of Bay Leaf with small branches were seen to spread on the sun to dry those. The leaves will be separated from the branches and those branches will also be sold as fuel. Sajib and Sobhan, two middlemen-cum-traders along with three more people from Kaunia of Rangpur district collect and purchase the Bay Leaf by visiting villages and the town areas.
They purchased the entire Bay Leaves with branches from the trees. By cutting and collecting those branches with leaves, they carry those to the field through vans. After drying and pouring those into sacs, they sell those Bay Leaves in various places of the country.
Trader Abdus Sobhan said, bright sunlight is required to dry up the Bay Leaves but the sunshine is not hot enough nowadays. That is why it is taking a long time to dry those.
Trader Sajib said, the suitable time for collecting Bay leaf is from October to March because there is usually no rainfall during that period of time. The rain or water causes damage to the fragrance of the Bay Leaf. He further mentioned, there is no enough Bay Leaf trees in the country in comparison to the demand. But, the Bay Leaf tree needs no extra care to grow.
Dr Mohammad Sabbir, resident of Paschim Shibram village under No-1, Chehelgazi Union informed, her owns a Bay Leaf tree at the outskirts of his house. He sells Bay Leaf two times every year, one in October and the other is in March. But, this year the traders arrived early and he is also selling the leaves in February.
He further mentioned he need not search the Bay Leaf traders rather the traders themselves search the houses with Bay Leaf trees. He said, he planted the Bay Leaf plant out of fancy, but that is now yielding a satisfactory amount of money every year.
