Pepper in the time of Alexander the Great was considered an extremely choice article and, like gold and precious stones, was for many generations found only on royal tables. During the Middle Ages, it was used as money in payment of tolls, etc., hence the custom of “pepper corn” rentals, i. e., a nominal rental or perpetual lease; and its high price is said to have been one of the causes which led the Portuguese to seek a sea passage to India.
The pepper plant grows naturally to 20 ft. in height, but is cultivated on trellises or poles, about 10 or 12 ft. high and is propagated by cuttings or suckers. It has a soft stem, the leaves are 4 to 6 in. long, tough, glossy, broadly ovate, with 5 to 7 nerves, and grow opposite and alternate to a pendulous spike 5 to 8 in. long, having 20 to 50 white flowers that ripen into a one-seeded fruit with a fleshy exterior. This fleshy berry, covering a soft stone, is about the size of a pea and is at first green, but in ripening turns red, which gradually darkens to a deep chocolate shade. The vine begins to bear when 3 or 4 years old and continues bearing for the next 10 or 15 years. It is in perfection at its eighth year.
There are two crops a year—July and December—which yield 5 to 6 lbs. of dried pepper each for a single vine. When the berries are ripe the stalk is pinched off by hand and placed in an oblong cane basket, slung horizontally behind the plucker by a rope around his waist. The rounded ends of the basket extend a little on either side, so that the basket can be easily filled by either hand of the workman. The berries are rubbed off the spikes by hand and placed on mats or on the bare ground, to dry in the sun, when the weather is fair. In damp or cloudy weather they are placed in shallow, open baskets before a gentle fire. If the berries are left too long on the vines they lose part of their aromatic, pungent hot taste, and if gathered too soon they become broken and dusty in drying. After drying, when they become black and shriveled up, they are cleaned and winnowed. Good black pepper is firm and not too deeply wrinkled, does not easily crumble or break in the hand, it is also heavy and readily sinks in water. The inner seed should be hard, round and smooth and of a grayish-brown color. The outside pericarp should be brownish-black. A yellow tinge betrays over-ripeness and consequent loss of strength. A reprehensible practice among some dealers to hide defective peppers is to artificially blacken them and polish with oil. The usual method of judging quality is by weight, the grades technically being known as heavy, or shot, half-heavy and light peppers or corns. A one-litre measure may be filled with the pepper and the contents weighed, or 100 corns of average size counted and their weight ascertained. The variations of peppers of different qualities, according to their habitat, are given in the following table:
| Variety— | Weight per litre |
| Singapore | 476 grams |
| Tellicherry | 548 ” |
| Lampong | 511 ” |
| Mangalore | 574 ” |
| Malabar | 570 ” |
| Acheen | 407 ” |
It is evident that the moisture present in the corns plays an important part in the determination of the weight, and it will be necessary to bring the peppers up to the stated water content by either drying them or placing them in a moist atmosphere, or first weigh them dry and weigh again. A slight variation, however, from the figures given, is unavoidable.
Singapore Pepper—The principal part of this import is the product of Sumatra, Borneo and Siam, collected at Singapore. A considerable quantity, however, is the products of the Straits Settlements themselves. It is of large size and of a fairly uniform quality, but as pepper powder it is not much esteemed, owing to the manner of drying, giving it a smoky flavor that buyers can distinguish Singapore pepper from peppers grown elsewhere.
Tellicherry and Alleppey are much alike in appearance, both being light brown in color. They too, like the Malabar peppers, are sun-dried. Mangalore (India) pepper is heavy, large, of a deep black color, very clean, and of uniform size. When powdered it is of a greenish-black appearance.
The pepper shipped from Penang is called Irang pepper and is grown in Sumatra. From the east end of the same island comes the Lampong pepper, but this lacks uniformity, and is light in color. It is also sun-dried. Long pepper is the fruit spike of Chivaci Roxburgh, a native of Malabar and Chavica officinarum, a native of the India archipelago; they are both climbing plants. The first pods, or catkins, about 1½ in. long, grow nearly straight, and opposite the leaves. They are gathered before they are ripe and dried in the sun, when they become brown or dark green in color and rough to the touch. They lack the pungency of the black variety. The long pepper plant dies at the end of 3 years, and after the fruit is collected the vine dies down to the ground. The fruit grows so close together on the spike that when ripe they become one solid mass. There is also a variety of long pepper called elephant pepper. Long peppers are mostly used for pickles. A medium, called Pippua moola, is made from the roots and stems; it is very stimulating.
Cubeb peppers are the berries of the vine Cubeb officinalis, a product of Java, Borneo and Sumatra, but mostly imported by way of Batavia and Canton. They are of a gray color, about the size of black pepper, somewhat longer, more wrinkled and with a short slender stalk. They have a hot, camphor taste. Another kind is distinguished by a mace-like odor and taste. Cubebs are now mostly used as a medicine.