Is there any difference between the light green, slightly soft coriander seeds at the Indian grocer, and the tan ones sold elsewhere? ;o)

And while we're on the subject of cardamom (sorry, Antonia, if I'm hijacking your thread), there's an Afghani restaurant where I live that puts cardamom in its iced tea, which is just delicious. So when I was in Istanbul recently, I bought a lot of decorticated (seeds removed from the pod, but not crushed or ground) cardamom at the Spice Market, in hopes that I could make the same delicious stuff at home. However, regardless of how much of the stuff I put in the tea brewer or in my glass, regardless of whether I crush it in a mortar first or not, and seemingly regardless of how much of it I use, it's barely detectable in the final product. Can anyone suggest why this should be? Should I not have bought the decorticated stuff, but purchased whole pods instead? It's just such a pain to extract the seeds from the pods that I thought I was so clever buying this stuff, but it might as well be sawdust.

The light green coriander seeds can be slightly toasted on a medium heat and ground a bit coarsely. A little of this goes a long way with braised carrots/potatoes.

The bright green ones are picked before they are dry, thus they are more like buds. Whereas the seeds are collected from the plant after it has matured completely and is near the end of its season. The former would bear a fresher taste. Deborah Madison has a recipe for lentil salad with coriander buds in her book "Vegetable Literacy"