black pepper

Black pepper, or Piper nigrum, is cultivated for its fruit known as a peppercorn. Peppercorn is dried and used a spice and seasoning. It is ubiquitous in the modern world as a seasoning, and is often paired with salt. There is white peppercorn (sarawak and muntok), black peppercorn (malabar and tellicherry), pink peppercorn and green peppercorn.

White pepper consists solely of the seed of the ripe fruit of the pepper plant, with the thin darker-coloured skin (flesh) of the fruit removed. Green pepper, like black pepper, is made from unripe drupes. Dried green peppercorns are treated in a way that retains the green colour, such as with sulphur dioxide, canning, or freeze-drying. Pink peppercorns are the fruits of the Peruvian pepper tree Schinus molle, or its relative, the Brazilian pepper tree, Schinus terebinthifolius.