of liquorice, are phytoestrogens. Cultivation and uses Liquorice grows best in well-drained soils in deep valleys with full sun. It is harvested in the autumn two to three years after planting. Countries producing liquorice include India, Iran, Italy, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan ( in Urdu), Iraq, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey. In India, liquorice is called () in the region of Maharashtra. In 2019, the world market for liquorice extract was 191 million, with the largest exporters led by France, Uzbekistan, China, and Iran, each providing 10–14% of the total. Tobacco Liquorice is used as a flavouring agent for tobacco, for flavour-enhancing and moistening agents in the manufacture of American blend cigarettes, moist snuff, chewing tobacco, and pipe tobacco. Liquorice provides tobacco products with a natural sweetness and a distinctive flavour that blends readily with the natural and imitation flavouring components employed in the tobacco industry. Liquorice can also be added to cigarette rolling papers. , the US Food and Drug Administration banned the use of any "characterizing flavors" other than menthol from cigarettes, but not other manufactured tobacco products. Food and confectionery Liquorice flavour is found in a wide variety of candies or sweets. In most of these candies, the taste is reinforced by aniseed oil so the actual content of liquorice is very low. Liquorice confections are primarily purchased by consumers in Europe, but are also popular in other countries such as Australia and New Zealand. In the Netherlands, liquorice confectionery (drop) is one of the most popular forms of sweets. It is sold in many forms. Mixing it with mint, menthol, aniseed, or laurel is quite popular. Mixing it with ammonium chloride () is also popular as it is in Finland. A popular example of salmiak liquorice in the Netherlands is known as ('salty liquorice'), but it contains very little if any common salt (sodium chloride). Strong, salty sweets are also popular in Nordic countries where liquorice flavoured alcohols are also popular, particularly in Denmark and Finland. Dried sticks of the liquorice root are also a traditional confectionery in their own right in the Netherlands as were they once in Britain although their popularity has waned in recent decades. They were sold simply as sticks of ('sweet wood') to chew on as a candy. Through chewing and suckling, the intensely sweet flavour is released. The sweetness is 30 to 50 times as strong as sucrose, without causing damage