So much more than just a pleasant taste, sugar has shaped Mauritius. You name it : faces, landscape, economy. You get it : a country bearing the stamp of a plant growing over 42 % of the territory. Calling itself a cultural site and not a museum, Sugarworld crystallises the very essence of the sweet granules.

Incidentally housed in the buildings of former Beau Plan sugar mill, just 15 minutes north of Port-Louis, real-life machinery is there to greet you at the door. Painted in vivid blue, fiery red and loud yellow, lit up as gigantic artworks would be, the jagged wheels are both impressive and intriguing.

What a sharp contrast with the dark passage of five metres or so through which you walk, as you begin the tour of Sugarworld permanent exhibition. Open since 2003, the site is an inventive way of flipping through the book of sugar cane history in Mauritius.

After the spectacular entry, the smell of hot sugar syrup glues you to a gripping experience which takes as long as an hour and a half ? if you choose to do it with a guide or just 20 minutes if only part of the permanent exhibition attracts your eye.

Frankly, that is virtually impossible. So rich is the research, so numerous the thematic rooms piled with equipment, posters and reading aids. Just imagine, Sugarworld takes you right back to Renaissance days, when sugar was as rare and precious as gold. Treading down memory lane, we meet slaves, indentured labourers, corsairs, the East India Company.

A few steps further and up you go into a crushing machine. An apt metaphor to understand from the inside the transformation process : from cane to juice, from juice to sugar.

<B>Thrilling experience</B>

Don?t be surprised if you see a few coins under the glass floor of the crushing machine. Visitors before you, apparently taken up by the belief that it?s a lucky charm, have thrown them there. The explanation is provided by Caroline Semonella Martial, director of the Sugarworld. The permanent exhibition has been designed with the help of the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute and the National Archives amongst others.

?Ours is a scientific approach, that of showing side by side the human contribution to the industry and the technological part of the process. The exhibition aims at giving a true reflection of our society to both locals and tourists.? So much so that ?ghost workers? have been placed alongside the machinery. The ceremonial of the opening of the cane-cutting season, cyclones wreaking havoc over acres of lush greenery, soothing to the eye and yet brimming with complexity.

No aspect of the sugar trade has been forgotten. The life budding around a sugar mill chimney has been recomposed at Sugarworld. The tour is a thrilling experience amidst the choo-chooing of a train and a real life barge. The interactive site also addresses themes such as the centralisation of activities, with just 11 sugar mills now, a far cry from the astounding 300-and-something that were running during the 19th century.

Guided tours are scheduled daily at 11 a.m and 2.30 p.m They are conducted in both English and French. Entrance fees range from Rs 150 for adults to Rs 80 for children.