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pepper

Pepper 

 

 

 
pepper sri lanka spice garden

 

Pepper, also known as the king of the spices  is a vine that belongs to Piperaceae family. It is the world's most exchanged spice and has become a must in most of the European and Asian dishes. Pepper is widely grown in south India. At the moment Vietnam is the world's biggest maker and exporter of pepper. Pepper has been utilized from those days for both its flavor and medicinal properties. The hotness of dark pepper is because of the substance called piperine. Piperrine is found in the skin of pepper. And out of all the kinds of pepper black pepper gets the prominent place, in terms of spiciness.


Know the Difference between Black, Green, Red and White pepper.



You might have heard of the four varieties of pepper. i.e Black pepper, Green pepper. Red pepper and White pepper. But nobody knows where these four varieties come from. When pepper is young it is usually green. when it becomes mature it turns dark green, this dark green pepper is what is known as green pepper. And this green pepper once dried turns black and those pepper is known as black pepper. If we do not pick this green pepper ultimately they turn red. They turn red once they are ripened. These are known as red pepper. We take this red pepper and soak in water for about 3 days and then take off the skin of red pepper. And you  find white pepper inside red pepper. 

The above demonstration might be confusing. So let me put it into a more clear language. All the four varieties of pepper come from the same plant. At least in Sri lanka they make all the four varieties from the same pepper plant. Green pepper is the young pepper, Black pepper is when pepper is dried, Red the ripened ones and White pepper is when the skin of red pepper is taken off. So now you know how pepper is processed.

Out of all the four kinds, black pepper is the strongest, because the skin of pepper is very strong and during the drying process pepper becomes stronger, just like any other spice when dried becomes stronger. The least strong is white pepper. The reason being, white pepper does not have the skin. We already know that the skin of pepper has a strong taste and aroma. Both Green and Red pepper have similar tastes.