Ian Hemphill can’t remember when herbs and spices were not a part of his life. The younger son of John and Rosemary Hemphill, who pioneered Australia’s love of herbs and spices in the 1950’s, Ian earned his pocket money picking herbs and remembers many a season when the family home was strewn with bunches of drying culinary produce. Ian worked with his parents for many years, managed a spice company in Singapore and was a senior manager for a multinational food company in Australia. In 1997 Ian and his wife Liz opened a specialty spice shop in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle, which bears the nickname Ian has had since school, Herbie’s. Author of The Spice & Herb Bible 3rd Edition. In 2015 it was a finalist in the ‘Reference and Scholarship’ Category of the James Beard Awards, which many consider to be the ‘the Oscars of the food world’. Ian enjoys sharing his lifelong obsession with herbs and spices, and is a prolific communicator about the world of spices in particular.