Pepper Black Ground

Black Pepper comes from the vine piper nigrum. It was one of the earliest articles of commerce between Asia and Europe and was often referred in history as “black gold”. The fruits of the vine start out dark green then turn yellow and finally bright red when fully ripe. Black peppercorns with their dark brown to black wrinkled skins are the dried green (unripe) fruit of piper nigrum plant. They have a pungent flavor with lingering heat.  Ground black pepper should be more grey than black indicating higher quality berries with the white inner seed were intact when ground.