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Peppercorn Plant Info.

Long peppercorns are brownish-blacks spikes made up numerous little seeds produced by the Piper longum plant, a close relative of black pepper. So not surprisingly it is native to the same region as regular peppercorns, Southern India, but is also now cultivated in other tropical regions around the world. Long pepper contains the same main active ingredient, Piperine, as common peppercorns, but in a slightly higher concentration.

Long pepper was once the common pepper found in Europe before the introduction of the spice we now know as peppercorns. The long peppercorns fell out of favor and were replaced with the cleaner tasting round peppercorns and the pungent chile peppers brought back from the New World by Christopher Columbus. Long pepper remained an obscure spice of the past for hundreds of years until recently when it started to reemerge as an exotic spice with the subtle differences in its flavor being appreciated in their own right.

Pepper mentioned in antiquity almost certainly was referring to long pepper and not the round peppercorns we commonly know today. Today Long pepper is most commonly found in cuisines of its native India, North Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Long pepper is also known as Thippili, Pippali, Pipal, or Javanese pepper in different parts of the world.

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