Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The same fruit is also used to produce white pepper and green pepper.[1] Black pepper is native to South India and is extensively cultivated there and elsewhere in tropical regions. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe five millimetres in diameter, da ...

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• Black pepper - Varieties of pepper
• Black pepper - The pepper plant
• Black pepper - History
• Black pepper - Ancient times
• Black pepper - Postclassical Europe
• Black pepper - China
• Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine
• Black pepper - Flavour
• Black pepper - World trade
• Black pepper - Notes

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Peppercorns are, by monetary value, the most widely traded spice in the world, accounting for 20 per cent of all spice imports in 2002. The price of pepper can be volatile, and this figure fluctuates a great deal year to year; for example, pepper made up 39 per cent of all spice imports in 1998.[22] By weight, slightly more chile pe ...

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Black pepper, Black pepper - Varieties of pepper, Black pepper - The pepper plant, Black pepper - History, Black pepper - Ancient times, Black pepper - Postclassical Europe, Black pepper - China, Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine, Black pepper - Flavour, Black pepper - World trade, Black pepper - Notes

Read more here: » Black pepper: Encyclopedia II - Black pepper - World trade

Pepper has been used as a spice in India since prehistoric times. It was probably first cultivated on the Malabar coast of India, in what is now the state of Kerala. The ancient history of black pepper is often interlinked with (and confused with) that of long pepper, the dried fruit of closely related Piper longum. The Romans knew of both and often referred to either as just "piper". In fact, it was not until the discovery of the New World and of chile peppers that the popularity of long pepper entirely declined. Chile peppers ...

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Black pepper, Black pepper - Varieties of pepper, Black pepper - The pepper plant, Black pepper - History, Black pepper - Ancient times, Black pepper - Postclassical Europe, Black pepper - China, Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine, Black pepper - Flavour, Black pepper - World trade, Black pepper - Notes

Read more here: » Black pepper: Encyclopedia II - Black pepper - History

The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine growing to four metres in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily where trailing stems touch the ground. The leaves are alternate, entire, five to ten centimetres long and three to six centimetres broad. The flowers are small, produced on pendulous spikes four to eight centimetres long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening ...

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Black pepper, Black pepper - Varieties of pepper, Black pepper - The pepper plant, Black pepper - History, Black pepper - Ancient times, Black pepper - Postclassical Europe, Black pepper - China, Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine, Black pepper - Flavour, Black pepper - World trade, Black pepper - Notes

Read more here: » Black pepper: Encyclopedia II - Black pepper - The pepper plant

Black pepper is produced from the still-green unripe berries of the pepper plant. The berries are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures cell walls in the fruit, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The berries are dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the fruit around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer around the seed. ...

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Black pepper, Black pepper - Varieties of pepper, Black pepper - The pepper plant, Black pepper - History, Black pepper - Ancient times, Black pepper - Postclassical Europe, Black pepper - China, Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine, Black pepper - Flavour, Black pepper - World trade, Black pepper - Notes

Read more here: » Black pepper: Encyclopedia II - Black pepper - Varieties of pepper

Pepper gets its spicy heat mostly from the piperine compound, which is found both in the outer fruit and in the seed. Refined piperine, milligram-for-milligram, is about one per cent as hot as the capsaicin in chile peppers. The outer fruit layer, left on black pepper, also contains important odour-contributing terpenes including pinene, sabinene, limonene, caryophyllene, and linalool, which give citrusy, woody, and floral notes. These scents are mostly missing in white pepper, which is stripped of the fruit layer. White pepper can gain some ...

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Black pepper, Black pepper - Varieties of pepper, Black pepper - The pepper plant, Black pepper - History, Black pepper - Ancient times, Black pepper - Postclassical Europe, Black pepper - China, Black pepper - Pepper as a medicine, Black pepper - Flavour, Black pepper - World trade, Black pepper - Notes

Read more here: » Black pepper: Encyclopedia II - Black pepper - Flavour