Why we grind every Tuesday
What happens to a spice after it is ground, and how to keep powders fresh.
How to tell good black pepper
Size, smell and a simple float test you can do at home.
Black pepper is the spice most often cut with cheaper material, and the difference shows up in your cooking.
Start with size. Good Tellicherry pepper is large and even, most corns over 4.5 mm. Small, uneven corns usually mean the pepper was picked before it was ripe, and it will taste flat.
Then smell it. Crush a corn between two spoons. Good pepper smells sharp, almost lemony and piney, and makes your nose tingle. Old or poor pepper smells dusty.
The float test is the simplest check. Drop a spoonful of corns into a glass of water. Good, dense pepper sinks. Light, hollow corns float, and so does papaya seed, which is sometimes mixed in because it looks similar.
Finally, look for the harvest year. Pepper keeps well whole, but loses strength after two years. Our packs carry the harvest year, and we sell each crop within twelve months.
