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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 a "shock". 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 that pepper plant to grow! That's incredible patience. Moreover, since it's organic, it is insanely sensitive." "Most farms still draw water from the irrigation pond by hand, bucket by bucket, walking kilometers, and yet everyone remains positive and smiling." Anička "I came with the idea that it would be like blueberries and it has 4 meters of pepper!""Red pepper is terribly tricky! Because you have to pick it berry by berry, as 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 seedlings. When we came the first time, the farms were dying." Nikola "I was surprised by how little pepper you get from the hard work on one plant per year! I calculated it, and from this little field, the whole family gets only about 200 kg of pepper." Jana "I was shocked that from one green pepper berry you actually get all types of Kampot peppers, that the taste is just a matter of ripening time. And that white is therefore the most demanding of all, because you pick berry by berry last and it is still peeled."

Once again, after a year, a Czech expedition arrived in 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 Kohchann Primary School for a welcome. We had an important task ahead – to hand over the money that we collected thanks to you and thanks to SIA Restaurant for the construction of a new library for the school!In total, we raised 2000 dollars, a much-needed amount for completing the building called 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 about 400 students and is doing very well.The group's welcome 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 had a picture drawn by the children, and then we joined a procession to the library.“Here we are building right next to the new building, it will be four entire classrooms,” the principal Makara proudly said.After the library, there was a photo session and wiping away 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, for 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 started 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 impressions, we said our final bows and with a loud “sok sabaj! ” which means “take care! ” we set off back on the journey 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.