We may say here that Black pepper is the fruit of a perennial climbing shrub, Piper nigrum, L., indigenous in the forests of Malabar and Travancore, and thence introduced into the Malay countries, particularly Sumatra.
White pepper is prepared from the black by removing the dark outer layer of pericarp, thereby depriving it of a part of its pungency. It comes chiefly viâ Singapore from the Dutch settlement of Rhio, but a small quantity of fine quality comes from Tellicherry in Malabar.
Long pepper is derived from two shrubby plants, Piper officinarum, C.D.C., a native of the Archipelago, and Piper longum, L., indigenous in Malabar, Ceylon, E. Bengal, Timor, and the Philippines. Long pepper is the fruit-spike gathered and dried when not quite ripe (Hanbury and Flückiger, Pharmacographia). All these kinds of pepper were, as has been said, known to the ancients.
c. 70 A.D.—"The cornes or graines ... lie in certaine little huskes or cods.... If that be plucked from the tree before they gape and open of themselves, they make that spice which is called Long pepper; but if as they do ripen, they cleave and chawne by little and little, they shew within the white pepper: which afterwards beeing parched in the Sunne, chaungeth colour and waxeth blacke, and therewith riveled also.... Long pepper is soone sophisticated, with the senvie or mustard seed of Alexandria: and a pound of it is worth fifteen Roman deniers. The white costeth seven deniers a pound, and the black is sold after foure deniers by the pound."—Pliny, tr. by Phil. Holland, Bk. xii. ch. 7.
c. 80-90.—"And there come to these marts great ships, on account of the bulk and quantity of pepper and [malabathrum].... The pepper is brought (to market) here, being produced largely only in one district near these marts, that which is called Kottonarikē."—Periplus, § 56.
c. A.D. 100.—"The Pepper-tree (πέπερι δένδρον) is related to grow in India; it is short, and the fruit as it first puts it forth is long, resembling pods; and this long pepper has within it (grains) like small millet, which are what grow to be the perfect (black) pepper. At the proper season it opens and puts forth a cluster bearing the berries such as we know them. But those that are like unripe grapes, which constitute the white pepper, serve the best for eye-remedies, and for antidotes, and for theriacal potencies."—Dioscorides, Mat. Med. ii. 188.
c. 545.—"This is the pepper-tree" (there is a drawing). "Every plant of it is twined round some lofty forest tree, for it is weak and slim like the slender stems of the vine. And every bunch of fruit has a double leaf as a shield; and it is very green, like the green of rue."—Cosmas, Book xi.
c. 870.—"The mariners say every bunch of pepper has over it a leaf that shelters it from the rain. When the rain ceases the leaf turns aside; if rain recommences the leaf again covers the fruit."—Ibn Khurdādba, in Journ. As. 6th ser. tom. v. 284.
1166.—"The trees which bear this fruit are planted in the fields which surround the towns, and every one knows his plantation. The trees are small, and the pepper is originally white, but when they collect it they put it into basons and pour hot water upon it; it is then exposed to the heat of the sun, and dried ... in the course of which process it becomes of a black colour."—Rabbi Benjamin, in Wright, p. 114.
c. 1330.—"L'albore che fa il pepe è fatto come l'elera che nasce su per gli muri. Questo pepe sale su per gli arbori che l'uomini piantano a modo de l'elera, e sale sopra tutti li arbori più alti. Questo pepe fa rami a modo dell'uve; ... e maturo si lo vendemiano a modo de l'uve e poi pongono il pepe al sole a seccare come uve passe, e nulla altra cosa si fa del pepe."—Odoric, in Cathay, App. xlvii.