Collection: Our long peppers

Long pepper is a plant from the Piperacea family with very small fruits for a pepper plant in a spike-shaped growth habit. The best-known types are the Indian and Javanese long pepper, Piper longum  and Piper retrofractum.  Long pepper is an under-appreciated pepper variety; since the seventeenth century, the pepper market has been dominated by the dried round berries of the Piper nigrum (black pepper) and since the eighteenth century by its most formidable competitor: the Capsicum or chili pepper.

In the period before that, spices were scarce and expensive, and many spices from Asia, mostly India, were transported overland due to lack of transportation facilities  - larger ships came later - and skills. Because how could you sail to the east with the prevailing wind direction in the monsoon season?

The dominant peppers in the Middle Ages and before were the African pepper, called paradise grain, and the long pepper, which was used as a medicine until the sixth century, following the Indian Ayurveda, and only then as a seasoning. Only then did the long pepper become a popular culinary ingredient in Greek and Roman cuisine, and from there in the rest of Europe.

The long pepper is slowly gaining a place next to the black pepper, especially the varieties grown in India and Indonesia. In this, the long pepper follows the tradition of the black pepper. In all honesty, not all long peppers from there can compete in taste with the 'small' long peppers from elsewhere, which have the disadvantage of being scarcer and more expensive. History repeats itself.

We currently supply two types of Piper retrofractum, distinguished by the blushing red colour of ripening: the Japanese pipatsu and the Cambodian long pepper, originating from the same region as the famous Kampot pepper, and one type of Piper longum, from the Vietnamese Binh Duong. The supply of the Japanese pipatsu and  The Binh Duong is temporarily 'complicated'. Therefore we currently only supply the red long Kampot pepper.

We miss two other long peppers in this overview, the African Piper capense (Cape long pepper), and Assam pepper, the blackberry-shaped long pepper, which is even more complex in taste than the ear-shaped long peppers. Despite a very long search, we have not yet succeeded in finding a high-quality  and reasonably affordable Cape long pepper. The search continues unabated. We do offer the Assam pepper, the Piper mulesua.

Try this other pepper. Enjoy its warm, earthy aromas and complexity that make long peppers ideal for use in curries and stews (whole, broken or ground) but also lend themselves well to use as a substitute for black pepper in the pepper mill. In that case, it is advisable to first crush the ear and remove the cob.

How  do you grind a long pepper?

Like nutmeg, you can grind long pepper by grating it, for example using a small Microplane grater, which you  you can also use it for garlic and ginger.  Or  our  Billund nutmeg mill, with its practical turning mechanism. This guarantees that your fingers will stay intact and you will waste little pepper!