New Delhi, July 24 -- The answer to today's Contexto (game #1405, July 24, 2026) is SPICE. Three semantic hints are below for solvers still working through it; the full breakdown follows.

Hints

Hint 1: Found in every kitchen's cabinet, this is the umbrella term for plant-derived flavoring agents that range from mildly aromatic to scorching.

Hint 2: A 15th-century trade network across the Indian Ocean made this commodity more valuable than gold in parts of Europe, and directly motivated Portuguese and Dutch colonial expansion.

Hint 3: A British pop group that defined the late 1990s made this word central to their collective identity - and their debut single reached number one in 37 countries.

The Answer: SPICE

SPICE sits at the inter...