This form of the spice is prepared from black pepper by removing its dark outer layer of pericarp, and thereby depriving it of a portion of its pungency. It is mentioned by Dioscorides, yet was evidently very little known in Europe even during the middle ages. In the time of Platearius,[2168] white pepper was supposed to be derived from a plant different from Piper nigrum.
Buchanan,[2169] referring to Travancore, remarks that white pepper is made by allowing the berries to ripen; the bunches are then gathered, and having been kept for three days in the house, are washed and bruised in a basket with the hand till all the stalks and pulp are removed.
The finest white pepper is obtained from Tellicherry, on the Malabar Coast, but only in small quantity. The more important places for its preparation are the Straits Settlements, chiefly Rhio. The export of white pepper from Singapore in 1877 was 48,460 peculs. Most of the spice finds its way to China, where it is highly esteemed. In Europe, pepper in its natural state is with good reason preferred.
The grains of white pepper are of rather larger size than those of black, and of a warm greyish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little flattened. At the base the skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt prominence, whence about 12 light stripes run meridian-like towards the depressed summit. If the skin is scraped off, the dark brown testa is seen enclosing the hard translucent albumen. In anatomical structure, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, which in fact it represents in a rather more fully-grown state.
White pepper appears to afford on an average not more than 1·9 per cent. of essential oil, but to be richer in piperin, of which Cazeneuve and Caillol (1877) extracted as much as 9 per cent. The amount of ash yielded by white pepper is 1·1 per cent. on an average, that is to say, considerably less than by black pepper.
FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI.
Piper longum; Long Pepper; F. Poivre long; G. Langer Pfeffer.
Botanical Origin—Piper officinarum C. DC. (Chavica[2170] officinarum Miq.), a diœcious shrubby plant, with ovate-oblong acuminate leaves, attenuated at the base, and having pinnate nerves. It is a native of the Indian Archipelago, as Java, Sumatra, Celebes and Timor. Long pepper is the fruit spike, collected and dried shortly before it reaches maturity.
Piper longum L.[2171] (Chavica Roxburghii Miq.), a shrub indigenous to Malabar, Ceylon, Eastern Bengal, Timor and the Philippines, also yields long pepper, for the sake of which it is cultivated along the eastern and western coasts of India. It may be distinguished from the previous species by its 5-nerved leaves, cordate at the base.[2172]
History—A drug termed Πέπερι μακρὸν, Piper longum, was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and may have been the same as the Long Pepper of modern times.