---

• n  Asian pepper plant whose dried leaves are chewed with betel nut (seed of the betel palm) by southeast Asians

• All morning long, they clambered on boardcrippled old men, bony women chewing betel nuts, young mothers with arms full of babies, pots, pans and blankets.
• An old woman with a mouthful of betel gave a long, mumbling monologue, gesturing vaguely toward the center of town and then away from it.
• Teak, betel nut and palm oil have also been ravaged by the global drop in commodity prices, throwing millions of Burmese who barely cling to the poverty line further into distress.

• betel pepper
• Piper betel

News & Articles

---

• Myanmar travel: Seeing Bagan, more before Westernization ruins it
  Tourism to Myanmar is rapidly increasing, and it's changing to accommodate the visitors. Here's one crowd-avoiding experience. BAGAN, Myanmar — Mr. Aye has a round, aged face and a wide, betel-nut-stained smile. Like many Burmese, he punctuates his speech with giggling, which can be alarming to a Westerner.
  Dec. 14, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

Quotes

---

• Naveen Patnaik in Economic Times
  Demanding shifting of the plant site, the Sangram Samiti in a memorandum to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said: "Betel cultivation in the past had successfully driven out the Integrated Test Range from Baliapal to Chandipur area in Balasore...
• William F Buckley Jr in New York Times
  Years ago, William F. Buckley described the Upper East Side as "the densest national concentration of vegetarians, pacifists, hermaphrodites, junkies, Communists, Randites, clam-juice-and-betel-nut eaters."
• Than Shwe in The Age
  When they came, they cut down and burnt our betel nut plantation, our cardamom garden, our coffee bushes,said Shwe Mya. "They forced us to move to a new camp near the army base. We were forced to work: to dig trenches, build fences, carry...