Basmati (pronounced IPA: [baːsmət̪iː] in South Asia) is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally from the Indian subcontinent. As of 2014, India exported 59 percent of the overseas basmati rice market.
Rice or Oryza Sativa (as botanists prefer to call it) is not a tropical plant but is still associated with a wet, humid climate. It is generally believed that the domestication of rice began somewhere in the Asian arc. From its place of birth, lost forever in the mists of time, the plant and its grain spread all over the world.