If you are interested in learning about pepperberry then take a stroll through our pepperberry library. If you’d just like to purchase some then skip this bit and proceed to shop pepperberry.
Tasmanian pepperberry is a native berry used for seasoning food as one would use black pepper. It has an amazing aroma and flavour that has caught the attention of chefs around the world. It is a headline act (hero ingredient) on many restaurant menus across Australia – Tasmania in particular – where the berries are grown. Yet it remains somewhat poorly known across Australia – perhaps because of its relative scarcity – dependent as the industry is, on wild harvest.
Pepperberry is a Tasmanian native plant that grows in high rainfall areas across Tasmania. It grows especially well on elevated land and is therefore also known as Mountain pepper. It goes by several other names: Native pepper, Tasmanian pepper, Pepperberry, Bush pepper and Tasmannia lanceolata (scientific name).
Pepperberry also grows on mainland Australia but its volume and distribution is limited by comparison to Tasmana. Therefore we regard pepperberry as a Tasmanian thing!
Pepperberry is used as an alternative to regular black pepper. However because it is also a fruit, it is also well suited to sweet applications. See the Culinary tab above for further information.
Pepperberry contains an unusual hot tasting compound called polygodial. Polygodial has been shown to have antimicrobial and antifungal activity. It has been shown to have a wide range of biological activities. Research into additional applications of this chemical are ongoing.
Extracts of pepperberry are used in currently available commercial products to reduce inflamation and improve skin health through collagen restoration. We are not privy to this research so cannot comment on its validity except to say that there is a lot of interesting resarch happening.
Pepperberry has been shown to possess extremely high level of antioxidants – both water and fat soluble. It is the fat soluble component of this that is especially valuable to us. Berries have three times the antioxidant content of blueberries while pepperberry leaf has ten times that of blueberries!
For nutritional information and background industry facts check out the RIRDC fact sheet.
Indigenous uses of pepperberry might not have been recorded asides from use as a remedy for tooth ache. Early European settlers used it in flavouring and identified it as having commercial importance in 1804. At some stage the plant was imported to Cornwall in the UK and grown to produce “Cornish pepper”! However it was not until the 1990’s that significant efforts were made to develop an industry and pepperberry became widely available across Australia.
Every year in autumn we head out into the bush to harvest pepperberry. It’s an activity that we love and of course it keep us in supply of pepperberry.
It is a remarkable feature of the Tasmanian pepperberry industry that it is still dependent on a wild harvest system. The ABC video above gives a snap shot of what this entails. In short we hand harvest pepperberries from sustainably managed sites across Tasmania including Mt Ponsonby which we own and manage. Wild harvest is further explained in our Sustainability section.
We hand-forage berries from a dozen different properties across Tasmania where we have made agreements with the land holders. All of these sites have this in common: pepperberry dominates the flora because of substantial land clearing activities occurring in the 20th century. Pepper thrives with such disturbance provided that disturbance is followed by a long period of recovery. These sites include ex-mining sites, forestry and farms.
We want to sell the best quality pepperberry we can. We know the importance of timing harvest right since under-ripe berries lack full flavour development. We have also developed an understanding of regional differences in aroma and flavour characteristics.
We’ve identified a number of issues that need to be addressed when harvesting pepperberry.
We believe that by paying landholders royalties for berries we harvest we are encouraging them to conserve the natural bush as it is. As most farmers appreciate, natural bush provides a boost to farm productivity by enriching the ecosystem, keeping pests in check, providing shelter for animals, lowering the water table, reducing salinity and reducing erosion.
Wild harvest requires full immersion in the bush experience for up to 3 months in a busy season. We were lucky enough to have ABC come out with us for one day in 2022. Look at the top of this page to find the ABC video It is a great snap shot of what wild harvest actually entails.
The distinctive “new” flavour of pepperberry will give your cooking a point of difference – experiment and learn about our very own native pepper!
The best and easiest way to use Tasmanian pepperberry is as an alternative to regular black pepper. Simple! Freshly cracked directly onto the plate is the best way to enjoy the full pepperberry flavour and aromatics.
When cooking with pepperberry you can add early or late in the cooking process. Late addition preserves the full pepperberry experience. However, one advantage of adding early is that the spicy bite is very much reduced with time and heat, which brings focus to the fruity character. Using pepperberry in this way will produce rich, deep and complex flavours. As such pepperberry is great in casseroles. Check out our pepperberry casserole recipe.
A good general rule: add lots early OR sparingly late.
Pepperberry is well suited to sweet dishes as well as savoury. Try it cracked onto icecream or try our Pepperberry Apple recipe.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out our recipes page.
Pepperberry can be ground using a mortar and pestle or in a regular pepper grinder. However, pepperberry does not always grind well in a pepper grinder due to its larger size as a dried berry. To enhance efficiency, we pre-crack our berries to reduce their size, ensuring they fit better in the grinder teeth. Our grinder refills contain pre-cracked pepperberry, offering the best solution for your grinding needs.
Pepperberry can absorb moisture in humid kitchens, making it hard to grind. If this happens, rehydrated berries need to be dried again for easier grinding. Preheat the oven to the lowest temperature, then turn it off and place the berries on a rack with the door open and the fan running. This method will help restore their grindability.
Did you know that pepperberry is an acid-base indicator?? That means that it expresses different colours based upon the acidity. The picture below shows a pinch of pepperberry in each vial of water with different amounts of citric acid or bicarb sodium added to shift the pH of the solution to express different colours. Pepperberry is red when its acidic and purple when its neutral! (The numbers on the vials indicates pH).
You may have noticed different colour effects when cooking with pepperberry. Different foods are coloured differently with pepperberry. Acidic foods such as fruit juices turn red while neutral foods such as milk or cream turn purple. Try adding a few drops of lemon juice to turn your pepperberry scarlet red!
Tasmanian pepperberry is a distinctive native spice with just as many similarities as differences to regular black pepper
Despite Tasmanian pepperberry (Tasmannia lanceolata) looking similar to regular black pepper (Piper nigrum) as a dried berry, they are unrelated plants with different flavours and aromas. The aptly named “pepperberry” possesses both spice and fruit qualities. It could be described as a cross between a plum, ginger and Sichuan pepper and has an amazing aromatic with notes of pepper, cloves, woody lantana, cinnamon, floral, citrus and sweet menthol. It is a complex and bright aroma not dissimilar to a Tasmanian eucalyptus forest after rain.
The spicy bite of pepperberry is somewhat similar to Sichuan pepper – hot and peppery with a somewhat numbing impact at high volumes. This bite is characteristically delayed on the palette – requiring a full minute or more to develop into it’s full potential.
Pepperberry containing foods are not always spicy because the spicy component can be reduced in cooking and also degrades in water-based preserves. Preserves may begin their life spicy but within three months are much reduced in the spicy bite whilst still retaining the other components of pepperberry flavour. We are looking into ways to improve this spice longevity.
Check out our bushfood recipes page for some inspiration.
Fresh pepperberries they can be dried for long term storage by two different mechanisms: air-drying or freeze-drying. Yes there is a difference in the end product
Freeze dried berries have a more vibrant fruity flavour than air dried berries. Additionally freeze dried berries have a slightly different colour – as a dry milled powder they are more purple in colour. In a wet environment freeze dried are again more purple but only at neutral ph – such as in eggs or milk based products. In acidic environs both berries are scarlet red (ph < 4.0) .
Freeze dried berries are not more spicy than air dried berries.
In practice your choice of berry might come down to your intended use. If you intend to use the berries in a grinder then you will have to use air dried berries – they are smaller and harder – much better for grinding. As a garnish in a meal, dessert or in a cocktail freeze dried is much better because it retains the original shape of the fruit more or less.
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