Black Gold

Black pepper has always been the world’s most sought-after spice. Today, that means ubiquity, its everyday ordinariness leaving it taken for granted. Go back in time though and peppercorns were so hotly coveted and valuable they were known as black gold.

They start as plump, jade balls growing in dense clusters. Picked before ripening, you get green peppercorns, the essential oils not yet fully developed, giving a spice that is grassy and only mildly hot. Left on the vine in the dappled shade of the undergrowth, they will swell and transform flame-like through yellow and orange to a deep glowing pink. Black peppercorns are harvested whilst still green but when the first few berries on the spike start to flush, showing they are close to maturity. Fermented in heaps for a few days, they are then laid in the sun to dry to the familiar wrinkled black. White peppercorns are left to mature fully on the vine, then treated with water to rub off the rough surface, forgoing fragrance for the cleaner white heat of the berries’ centres. Red peppercorns, rare even in the countries where they grow, are the fully matured berries, which combine the pungency of pepper with a delicate, toffeed fruitiness.