Granos de pimienta Tellicherry Special Extra Bold

An Indian peppercorn, there is a lot of misinformation about these peppers. All peppercorns are of the Piper nigrum family, the fruit of a flowering vine dried to enhance the chemical piperine, not to be confused with the capsaicin characteristic of chili peppers.

In India, they’re the largest “grade” that come out of the sorters. Think of them like eggs: Grade AA, Grade A, etc.  These? They’re “AAAAAA.” They’re left to ripen longer, which makes them bigger and richer than Malabars, are a grade down from Tellicherry, and two grades down from the Special Extra Bolds.

When the peppercorns grow larger, they will lose a bit of their heat, but, the trade-off is bigger aroma! Peppercorns’ heat are really the secondary experience. Their aroma, how they impact your nose, is what distinguishes them. Most Malabar is big on flavor, but very “eh” for aroma. They have some of the same characteristics as the white peppercorn, with far more robust flavor.

Spicy “extra bold” are the peppercorns allowed to grow and ripen longer, so they are the King Kongs of aroma. My go-to for spices, SpiceJungle, gets the best of the best, the Special Extra Bold!

The only differentiations in peppers’ flavor can come from where they’re grown and harvested. Pepper comes from a variety of tropical regions these days, much of it in the American market from Vietnam. The Indian peppercorns tend to be my favorite. The Vietnamese do killer cinnamon, but their pepper crops seem to intake a lot of less-ripe berries that produce a little pinch of pungence, but not much aroma. You won’t always know origin, but if it says Product of India, it’s probably the right way to go!