Sources for High-Quality Peppercorns

[andiesenji]

This is a photo I had on my Blog.

It doesn't show the Wynad Pepper,  Kampot, Lampong, or Malabar - which I added after the photo.

[lemniscate]

I ordered the Sir Spice black peppercorn sampler;  the SO so far loves the Vietnamese;  thinks the Lampong is too "hot".

 

I like the Lampong due to its sharpness, its great on meat.   I like the Vietnamese on salad and fruits so far. 

 

We still have 4 more packs of variety unopened, so a new favorite will probably arise.

 

On a side note, I am now shopping for additional pepper mills because I'd love to have all 6 at the ready for whatever pepper mood I am in, so this foray into black pepper is gonna cost me quite a bit more money.

[chromedome]

5 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

I ordered the Sir Spice black peppercorn sampler;  the SO so far loves the Vietnamese;  thinks the Lampong is too "hot".

 

I like the Lampong due to its sharpness, its great on meat.   I like the Vietnamese on salad and fruits so far. 

 

We still have 4 more packs of variety unopened, so a new favorite will probably arise.

 

On a side note, I am now shopping for additional pepper mills because I'd love to have all 6 at the ready for whatever pepper mood I am in, so this foray into black pepper is gonna cost me quite a bit more money.

Seems to be a recurring theme on eG, doesn't it?

[lemniscate]

2 minutes ago, chromedome said:

Seems to be a recurring theme on eG, doesn't it?

 

'Struth.

[rotuts]

@lemniscate

 

maybe this is worth a look :

 

from IKEA    work well enough for me :

 

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10152875/

 

same mechanism in wood :

 

works for me

 

Edited July 6, 2019 by rotuts (log)

[andiesenji]

51 minutes ago, lemniscate said:

I ordered the Sir Spice black peppercorn sampler;  the SO so far loves the Vietnamese;  thinks the Lampong is too "hot".

 

I like the Lampong due to its sharpness, its great on meat.   I like the Vietnamese on salad and fruits so far. 

 

We still have 4 more packs of variety unopened, so a new favorite will probably arise.

 

On a side note, I am now shopping for additional pepper mills because I'd love to have all 6 at the ready for whatever pepper mood I am in, so this foray into black pepper is gonna cost me quite a bit more money.

I feel your pain...  I counted and I have  11 pepper mills - I need small ones for Grains of Paradise, for Allspice, an extra-fine ceramic mill for pink peppercorns.  Also 4 salt grinders.  

[rotuts]

a P.S.:  on the IKEA glass grinder

 

I had a lot of these , and you used them " upside down "

 

they are inexpensive , esp if there is an IKEA near you.

 

Cant say much about shipping

 

but if you have a lot of different peppercorns

 

you can see what in the grinder

 

I used them also for whole dried herbs and spices

 

from penzies

 

and was able to grind the mix finer for what ever I decided to do.

 

I added some of Penzey's  ' blends "

 

and some had sugar in them 

 

eventually the sugar attracted moisture 

 

and those girders did not work , nor cold I figurer how to take them apart and fix them

 

but at 6 bucks ++

 

what to worry about ?

[blue_dolphin]

3 hours ago, lemniscate said:

I ordered the Sir Spice black peppercorn sampler;  the SO so far loves the Vietnamese;  thinks the Lampong is too "hot".

 

I like the Lampong due to its sharpness, its great on meat.   I like the Vietnamese on salad and fruits so far. 

 

We still have 4 more packs of variety unopened, so a new favorite will probably arise.

 

On a side note, I am now shopping for additional pepper mills because I'd love to have all 6 at the ready for whatever pepper mood I am in, so this foray into black pepper is gonna cost me quite a bit more money.

 

Thanks to @andiesenji's recommendations, I also ordered the Sir Spice sampler and have been very impressed with the quality - so much fragrance!  

And like you, I'm also in the market for more pepper mills 🙃. I presently have 3.  A Unicorn 6" (which has been out of stock for some time now) for my usual Tellicherry, a wooden one with a very fine grind for white pepper and an inexpensive glass one for a rainbow mix that's more for looks than taste.  I was going to buy at least one more Unicorn but the IKEA grinders that @rotuts mentioned seem like a good, inexpensive option. 

[andiesenji]

I like the grinders - manual ones - that dispense from the TOP.  I had some of the larger bottom dispensing ones but "dispensed" with them when I picked one up to grind some pepper into a dish and a spider fell out.  I looked at the others and another had a juvenile black widow living in the hollow on the bottom.  

I bought 3 sets of these, after trying out individual ones.  One broke but they are so inexpensive that doesn't worry me.

 

Wonder Sky Salt and Pepper Grinder Set of 3 - Tall Salt and Pepper Shakers with Adjustable Coarseness by Ceramic Rotor

 

 

I can't see paying a lot of money for a pepper mill when these do a perfectly fine job - the salt grinders work fine on peppercorns.

 

I wrote a review on these grinders, it's somewhere in the 200+ reviews.  

[lemniscate]

1 hour ago, andiesenji said:

another had a juvenile black widow living in the hollow on the bottom.

 

Uh, yikes.  I am a desert dweller and I am the designated Black Widow hunter/killer in this house, but even I might have a pause over that discovery.

[Katie Meadow]

Thanks to @andiesenji I ordered the Tellicherry peppercorns from Sir Spice. Best moment was opening the bag under my nose. They are  fresh and tasty, so no complaints.

 

I have two pepper mills.One is a Unicorn that I found in my mother's kitchen when she died and seems a very adequate work horse and I appreciate how easy it is to refill. However if the refill sleeve accidentally gets shifted, which has happened twice, the result can be pretty annoying, and since the whole thing is black it's easy to miss that the hole is exposed. The other is an upside-down style from Cole and Mason. It's very solid and the five grind selections actually are pretty effective, which is not true of most grinders in my experience.

 

I had one of those standard Danish teak grinders from the fifties, and that lasted sixty years. It wasn't very precise, but I always liked the mid-century look of it, and the feel of the wood. None of my pepper mills ever housed a black widow.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Katie Meadow (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Sorry I never gave an update.  I've been working my way through my order of Penzeys Whole Special Extra Bold Indian Black Peppercorns currently in the grinder.  Very pleased.

 

My solution to the multiple peppers in my collection is a battery of mortars.

 

 

[Smithy]

I now have a set of 3 WonderSky pepper mills (thanks to @andiesenji for the recommendation!) and a sampler pack with 8 types of peppercorns on order. I'd have gone with the sampler pack also recommended by Andie, but their web site still says they're out of the pink peppercorns and I haven't tried checking with a live human to see if the web page is simply outdated.

[Smithy]

My peppercorns arrived today. I hate it when packages like this rattle.

 

 

Now I'm trying to navigate the Amazon maze to see about getting a refund or replacement. When I click on "return package" I'm informed that this item can't be returned. It used to be that there was a Customer Service Chat button, but - to show how long it's been since I had a problem - that seems to have disappeared. I've sent an email to the seller to see what can be done.

 

eta I found the link to customer service, and they've issued a refund. no muss, no fuss. Bless them.

 

[andiesenji]

2 hours ago, Smithy said:

My peppercorns arrived today. I hate it when packages like this rattle.

 

 

 

Now I'm trying to navigate the Amazon maze to see about getting a refund or replacement. When I click on "return package" I'm informed that this item can't be returned. It used to be that there was a Customer Service Chat button, but - to show how long it's been since I had a problem - that seems to have disappeared. I've sent an email to the seller to see what can be done.

 

eta I found the link to customer service, and they've issued a refund. no muss, no fuss. Bless them.

 

This appears to be a brand new product.  I will be interested in how you find the peppercorns that remain unsullied.

While I have some mixed peppercorns (came in one or two of the grinders I tested before ordering the Wonder Sky sets)

I dumped them into a jar and use them for pickling, in marinades, etc., whole - rather than as seasoning.  They have a pretty appearance but the ones I have gotten haven't been distinctive, but yours might be of better quality  or at least fresher.

I have a friend who loves the "medley" but she can't tell the difference between different peppers anyway.  Sometimes being a supertaster is a curse.  (I received a bottle of EVOO from a friend on Saturday.  I opened it yesterday and it has a faint rancid flavor, which would probably not be detected by most people.  It's okay, for now, for salad dressings with herbs and spices, but I won't use it as a bread dip.

It's from Il Fustino in Santa Barbara.  The new "premier" California olive oil producer.  

My friend said she and her sister went there in February and "bought far too much" and decided to share with me the oil and some olives.

[lindag]

Glad to see you posting as there was some concern about your being in the area of the recent earthquakes.

14 minutes ago, andiesenji said:

 

 

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, andiesenji said:

This appears to be a brand new product.  I will be interested in how you find the peppercorns that remain unsullied.

While I have some mixed peppercorns (came in one or two of the grinders I tested before ordering the Wonder Sky sets)

I dumped them into a jar and use them for pickling, in marinades, etc., whole - rather than as seasoning.  They have a pretty appearance but the ones I have gotten haven't been distinctive, but yours might be of better quality  or at least fresher.

I have a friend who loves the "medley" but she can't tell the difference between different peppers anyway.  Sometimes being a supertaster is a curse.  (I received a bottle of EVOO from a friend on Saturday.  I opened it yesterday and it has a faint rancid flavor, which would probably not be detected by most people.  It's okay, for now, for salad dressings with herbs and spices, but I won't use it as a bread dip.

It's from Il Fustino in Santa Barbara.  The new "premier" California olive oil producer.  

My friend said she and her sister went there in February and "bought far too much" and decided to share with me the oil and some olives.

 

I'll let you know what I learn. The broken vial's contents were the "Sarawak White" peppercorns. Judging by the delightfully pungent aroma wafting from our wastebasket, I'd wager they were quite good...but I'm not going to risk the glass shards to be certain. There are 7 other intact vials containing different varieties and mixtures of peppercorns. The company wasn't interested in getting them back. I bought this selection largely to ensure I could get Brazilian pink peppercorns, but I'm also intrigued by the Chinese long pepperscorn and the green peppercorns.

 

My sister has always been a supertaster and she doesn't think it's necessarily a blessing, for reasons you describe. She is particularly good at picking up "bitter" and has no use for less-than-fresh green vegetables as a result. I have a good sense of taste and smell, but probably not that finely tuned. My DH is at the other end: quite definitely incapable of tasting rancidity or early fermentation, so I have to clean the refrigerator periodically to clear out unintentional biology experiments.

[andiesenji]

On 7/8/2019 at 7:29 PM, Smithy said:

 

I'll let you know what I learn. The broken vial's contents were the "Sarawak White" peppercorns. Judging by the delightfully pungent aroma wafting from our wastebasket, I'd wager they were quite good...but I'm not going to risk the glass shards to be certain. There are 7 other intact vials containing different varieties and mixtures of peppercorns. The company wasn't interested in getting them back. I bought this selection largely to ensure I could get Brazilian pink peppercorns, but I'm also intrigued by the Chinese long pepperscorn and the green peppercorns.

 

My sister has always been a supertaster and she doesn't think it's necessarily a blessing, for reasons you describe. She is particularly good at picking up "bitter" and has no use for less-than-fresh green vegetables as a result. I have a good sense of taste and smell, but probably not that finely tuned. My DH is at the other end: quite definitely incapable of tasting rancidity or early fermentation, so I have to clean the refrigerator periodically to clear out unintentional biology experiments.

The Chinese long pepper is fairly new to China.  The plant is native to India and was more popular in Europe during the middle ages than what we consider "regular" peppercorns. It was more pungent and better to cover up meat that had "gone off" than the less pungent peppercorns.

The only long pepper I have used is from Sri Lanka.  It's strictly my personal preference, I avoid food sourced from China.  

Use the pink peppercorns sparingly.  Too much can cause stomach upset.  It's not easy to grind because not all of it is hard. You need an extra fine ceramic grinder as the thin layers seem to slide right through metal teeth and look like tiny shells.  I use a spice grinder, shaking and inverting it while my thumb is on the switch. I then WAIT till the dust has settled and then sift through a superfine sieve onto food. 

Google it - there are warnings for pregnant women and children.  

I am very interested in your evaluations.  

[CanadianHomeChef]

I buy all my spices, including a variety of peppercorns, locally from The Silk Road in Inglewood here in Calgary. They also have a store at the farmer’s market on Blackfoot and another store in Edmonton. They ship across Canada and the USA. 

 

https://silkroadspices.ca/pages/all-collections

 

[Okanagancook]

Silk Road is excellent, as you say.

[Smithy]

On 7/10/2019 at 12:59 AM, andiesenji said:

The Chinese long pepper is fairly new to China.  The plant is native to India and was more popular in Europe during the middle ages than what we consider "regular" peppercorns. It was more pungent and better to cover up meat that had "gone off" than the less pungent peppercorns.

The only long pepper I have used is from Sri Lanka.  It's strictly my personal preference, I avoid food sourced from China.  

Use the pink peppercorns sparingly.  Too much can cause stomach upset.  It's not easy to grind because not all of it is hard. You need an extra fine ceramic grinder as the thin layers seem to slide right through metal teeth and look like tiny shells.  I use a spice grinder, shaking and inverting it while my thumb is on the switch. I then WAIT till the dust has settled and then sift through a superfine sieve onto food. 

Google it - there are warnings for pregnant women and children.  

I am very interested in your evaluations.  

 

Thanks for the additional information about the long pepper and the pink peppercorns. I am especially interested in the latter because those trees lined the walkways in Fresno, where my grandparents lived, and Claremont, where I went to college, and I never knew they were good for anything more than the aroma until Panaderia Canadense's recent foodblog. I'll be careful with them, and won't try using one of my new peppermills for them.

 

So far I've only tried the green peppercorns from the sample set I got. I think they're delightfully pungent and quite fresh. I don't have a lot of experience by which to judge them, but I'm happy with the the flavor.  I'll post more about this as I try other corns from the sampler.

 

I also have a follow-up on Customer Service. I reported above that my sampler pack arrived with one broken tube. I sent an email to the company after learning that the product couldn't be returned despite being damaged. Then I found the Amazon Customer Service chat and contacted them. They issued a full refund for the product. I was pretty happy with that. Two days later, without warning, a brand-new sampler pack arrived, this time intact, from CAM foods! So then I had a full pack and an almost-full pack at no charge. That wouldn't do. How to pay CAM for the replacement, I wondered, without its looking like a new order? I contacted Customer Service again and explained the situation. They said they'd charge my card again for the replacement pack. It remains to be seen whether (a) that actually happens and (b) yet another sampler pack arrives despite my best intentions. I have to give credit all around for their efforts at customer satisfaction.

[andiesenji]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

Thanks for the additional information about the long pepper and the pink peppercorns. I am especially interested in the latter because those trees lined the walkways in Fresno, where my grandparents lived, and Claremont, where I went to college, and I never knew they were good for anything more than the aroma until Panaderia Canadense's recent foodblog. I'll be careful with them, and won't try using one of my new peppermills for them.

 

So far I've only tried the green peppercorns from the sample set I got. I think they're delightfully pungent and quite fresh. I don't have a lot of experience by which to judge them, but I'm happy with the the flavor.  I'll post more about this as I try other corns from the sampler.

 

I also have a follow-up on Customer Service. I reported above that my sampler pack arrived with one broken tube. I sent an email to the company after learning that the product couldn't be returned despite being damaged. Then I found the Amazon Customer Service chat and contacted them. They issued a full refund for the product. I was pretty happy with that. Two days later, without warning, a brand-new sampler pack arrived, this time intact, from CAM foods! So then I had a full pack and an almost-full pack at no charge. That wouldn't do. How to pay CAM for the replacement, I wondered, without its looking like a new order? I contacted Customer Service again and explained the situation. They said they'd charge my card again for the replacement pack. It remains to be seen whether (a) that actually happens and (b) yet another sampler pack arrives despite my best intentions. I have to give credit all around for their efforts at customer satisfaction.

I've had that happen a few times. They usually send an email telling you to discard the damaged item and keep the replacement with their compliments.  

In fact that happened recently with an inexpensive order of saltines, the package lost in the mail. I got the replacement and a couple of days later the original showed up.

"H

ello Andrea,   I'm sorry to hear about the problem you've had with your Amazon Brand - Solimo Saltine Crackers, 16 ounce.   I've created a replacement for you at no additional charge.   The estimated delivery date for your replacement order is Friday, June 28, 2019. To see the order details of the replacement order, visit Your Account at the top of any page on our website or use the following link

On this occasion we don't require you to return the original. You're welcome to keep, donate or dispose of it - whichever option is most appropriate and convenient for you.   I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

We'd appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today."

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've been happy with my Penzeys' Whole Special Extra Bold Indian Black Peppercorns.  Which is a good thing because I have a lot.  However after a long absence The Spice House has their Cambodian red and black peppercorns back in stock.  I decided to pass this time on black but restocked with a bag of Cambodian red.

 

I also purchased long peppers and pink peppercorns, neither of which I've tried before.  (Yes, I know these are not true pepper.)

 

[tim]

Sarawak Black Peppercorns are again available after a long absence. Yes, that fruity mild and delicious pepper is back.

 

Malaysia suffered from heavy rains over the past three years. The crops were limited and no black sarawaks were exported.

For several years before 2018, sarawaks were not available throught the Malaysian Pepper Board. This probably related to political problems.

 

As a result, black peppercorns being sold by Kalustians, Sara Spice were/are still extremely hot which overpowered all other flavor components.  Sara Spice claimed that they were sourced by the Malaysian Pepper Board?

 

Salt Traders and Sir Spice are good sources.

Tim