Which one of the following crops was introduced by the Portuguese in India?

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish a presence in India, arriving at the beginning of the sixteenth century [1]. As part of the 'Columbian Exchange,' they introduced several New World crops to the Indian subcontinent, including tobacco, cashew nuts, potatoes, tomatoes, and chilies [4]. Specifically, chili peppers (Capsicum species) were brought from South America to Indian shores in the 16th century [5]. By the mid-1500s, they were well-established in Goa, then known as 'Pernambuco pepper' after a Portuguese colony in Brazil. In contrast, coffee was introduced to India from Yemen by the Sufi saint Baba Budan, who planted it in the hills of Karnataka [2]. Opium was a traditional trade commodity in the Ganga valley long before British dominance [3], and betel leaf is native to South and Southeast Asia. Thus, chili is the crop definitively introduced by the Portuguese.

Sources

1. [1] History , class XI (Tamilnadu state board 2024 ed.) > Chapter 16: The Coming of the Europeans > Introduction > p. 243
2. [4] NCERT. (2022). Contemporary India II: Textbook in Geography for Class X (Revised ed.). NCERT. > Chapter 4: The Age of Industrialisation > Food Crops other than Grains > p. 86
3. [5] Rajiv Ahir. A Brief History of Modern India (2019 ed.). SPECTRUM. > Chapter 3: Advent of the Europeans in India > The Dutch > p. 36
4. [2] Rajiv Ahir. A Brief History of Modern India (2019 ed.). SPECTRUM. > Chapter 3: Advent of the Europeans in India > View > p. 27
5. [3] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART II, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 8: Peasants, Zamindars and the State > Agricultural prosperity and population growth > p. 201