The karewas are the elevated plateaus of the Kashmir valley: ancient lake beds, terraced over millennia into fine alluvial silt. The saffron fields of Pampore stand on karewa. So do the almond orchards and the walnut groves, worked by the same families across four and five generations.
Kashmiri walnuts, thin-shelled, the kernels lifting whole from the shell. Mamra almonds — dense, sweet, high in oil, and related to the uniform commercial almond in name alone. Ladakhi apricots, sun-dried at altitude and never sulphured, which accounts for their amber depth rather than the bright orange of treated fruit.
The oldest gift in the valley, and the most enduring.
