INDIGO: THE FASCINATION WITH BLUE – TAASA Review September 2008

Margaret White T he quest for one of nature’s rarest colours, indigo blue, once dubbed `blue gold’ and perhaps the oldest known dye, led to indigo being treasured as one of the world’s most valued commodities.

Indeed, the story of indigo is a complex and fascinating one linking virtually every known culture. The word indigo, derived from the Greek term from India, refers to the fact that much of the indigo exports originated from that subcontinent.

Indigo’s blue colouring may be extracted from the leaves of hundreds of species of the indigo plant, a perennial growing in tropical, subtropical and temperate climates...