English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

2006-07-08 11:29:24 · 5 answers · asked by ezzie40 1 in Food & Drink Other - Food & Drink

5 answers

The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine growing to four metres in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily where trailing stems touch the ground. The leaves are alternate, entire, five to ten centimetres long and three to six centimetres broad. The flowers are small, produced on pendulous spikes four to eight centimetres long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening to seven to 15 centimetres as the fruit matures.

A single stem will bear 20 to 30 fruiting spikes. The harvest begins as soon as one or two berries at the base of the spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is mature, but when full grown and still hard; if allowed to ripen, the berries lose pungency, and ultimately fall off and are lost. The spikes are collected and spread out to dry in the sun, then the peppercorns are stripped off the spikes.

Black pepper is produced from the still-green unripe berries of the pepper plant. The berries are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures cell walls in the fruit, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The berries are dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the fruit around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer around the seed. Once dried, the fruits are called black peppercorns.

2006-07-08 11:42:36 · answer #1 · answered by mathiesm 2 · 1 0

I found the site below to be very interesting and informative. It even has pictures and tells you the difference between white and black peppers and their strengths.

2006-07-08 18:47:20 · answer #2 · answered by THE SINGER 7 · 0 0

It Grows On A Plant (Peppercorn)

2006-07-08 18:32:47 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

from pepper trees, seriously

2006-07-08 18:33:13 · answer #4 · answered by michael m 1 · 0 0

they grow on plants

2006-07-08 18:33:11 · answer #5 · answered by dyboy34 3 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers