Why Don't They Allow Black Pepper Berries to Fully Ripen?

Ripening

• When you pick an unripe piece of fruit from a tree, it is typically hard. A mature piece of fruit is softer and usually has a different color when compared to an unripe piece of fruit. When harvesting fruit during different stages of maturity or immaturity, each piece of fruit has a different flavor, in relation to its stage of development. Harvesting pepper berries when they begin to turn yellow, and are not fully mature, produces the desired flavor for black pepper.

Process

• The strongest pepper flavor is that of the black pepper, made from the unripe pepper berry. Black pepper consists of the whole berry. Consumers purchase it in whole or ground form. The processing of the black pepper berries turns them from yellow to black. Some growers process black pepper by sun drying the berries, dipping them in hot water after harvest or storing them in a room to encourage a fermentation, which turns the berries black. There is also gray pepper, which is similar to black pepper but washed less. The gray pepper tends to be milder than the black pepper and is less commonly used.

White

• Black pepper is more popular in the United States, while white pepper is more common in Europe. White peppers, harvested when very ripe, have a more subtle, milder flavor when compared to black pepper. After harvesting, the ripe peppers are soaked in salt water and then have their skins removed. Harvesting when ripe and removing the skins produces the milder flavor.

Green

• Processing green pepper involves pickling and then drying. As with berries for black pepper, growers harvest the berries before they ripen. Green pepper alone is not as common a spice as white pepper or black pepper. A highly aromatic seasoning, its flavor is more fruity than spicy.