Black pepper Plants and its briefing

The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine that grows up to 4 m (13 ft) on a support tree, pole or trellis.It is a spreading vine that takes root easily where the trailing stem touches the ground.The leaves are alternate and complete, 5 to 10 cm (2.0 to 3.9 inches) long and 3 to 6 cm (1.2 to 2.4 inches) wide. Flowers are small, produced in pendulous spikes at 4 to 8 cm (1.6 to 3.1 in) long leaf nodes, which elongate to 7 to 15 cm (2.8 to 5.9 in) as fruit ripens.Pepper can be grown in moist, well-drained soil rich in organic matter that is neither too dry nor prone to flooding (vines do not do well at altitudes of 900 m (3,000 ft)).The plants are propagated by cuttings about 40 to 50 cm (16 to 20 in) long and tied to neighboring trees or climbing frames at a distance of about 2 m (6 ft 7 in); Trees with smooth bark are more popular as pepper plants climb rough bark more easily.Competing plants are removed, leaving just enough trees to provide shade and free ventilation.The roots are covered with leaf mulch and fertilizer, and the shoots are pruned twice a year. On dry soil, seedlings will need to be watered every other day during the dry season for the first three years.The plants start fruiting in the fourth or fifth year and then usually last for seven years.Cuttings are usually cultivars, selected for yield and fruit quality.

There are 20 to 30 ears on one stem.Harvesting begins once the one or two fruits at the base of the spike start to turn red, and before the fruit is fully ripe and still firm; if allowed to fully ripen, the fruit loses its pungency and eventually falls off and disappears.The spikes are collected and spread out to dry in the sun, then the peppercorns are peeled from the spikes.Black pepper is native to Southeast Asia[13] or South Asia.Within the genus Piper, it is most closely related to other Asian species such as P. caninum.

Wild pepper grows in the Western Ghats region of India.Well into the 19th century, the forest was overgrown with sprawling wild pepper vines, as the Scottish physician Francis Buchanan (also a botanist and geographer) wrote in his book "From Madras Across the Mysore, Kanara and Malabar" (Vol. III).However, deforestation has resulted in the growth of wild chilli in more limited forest patches from Goa to Kerala, and wild chilli resources have gradually declined as the quality and yield of cultivars have improved. There has been no success in grafting commercial peppers onto wild peppers.

Ancient times

Shortly after Ramesses II's death in 1213 BC, black peppercorns were found stuffed in his nostrils as part of a mummification ritual.Little is known about the use of pepper in ancient Egypt and how it reached the Nile from the Malabar coast in South Asia.Pepper (both long and black) was known in Greece at least as early as the 4th century BC, although it was probably a rare and expensive item that only the very wealthy could afford.By the time of the early Roman Empire, and especially after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 B.C.,open seas from the Arabian Sea to the Malabar coast of southern Chera India were almost commonplace.Details of this trade across the Indian Ocean have survived in the area around the Red Sea.According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the early empire sent a fleet of about 120 ships to and from India once a year.The fleet timed its crossing of the Arabian Sea to take advantage of the predictable monsoons. After returning from India, the ships sailed up the Red Sea, from where the goods traveled by land or via the Nile-Red Sea Canal to the Nile, and then barges to Alexandria, from where they were shipped to Italy and Rome.The rough geographic outlines of this trade route would dominate the pepper trade into Europe for a millennium and a half.

With ships heading directly to the Malabar coast, Malabar black pepper now has a shorter trade route than long pepper, and prices reflect this.The natural history of Pliny the Elder tells us about prices in Rome around AD 77: "Long pepper.In what year will India not exhaust the fifty million sesterces of the Roman Empire", and further preaching on pepper:It is surprising that the use of pepper is so popular, because among other substances we use, it is sometimes their sweetness and sometimes their appearance that attracts our attention; however, there is nothing in pepper that can be regarded as fruit or A recommendation of the berry, whose only satisfying quality is a certain pungency; yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who was the first to experiment with it as food? I wonder, who wouldn't be content to satisfy a voracious appetite just by being hungry.