Long Pepper (Thippuli)

Description

Long Pepper

Grown mainly in India and the Indonesian island of Java, long pepper, also called pippali and pipli, is the tiny fruit that comes from the long, cone-like flower spike grown on a flowering vine of the same name. The fruits are roughly the size of a poppy seed and are used whole and ground up, often in lieu of black, white or green pepper. Though long pepper is substituted for these other, more common peppers, the taste runs more akin to the spice blend garam masala thanks to the subtle notes of ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg. This spice also has a lingering bite, which has made it a preferred addition to many dishes in India and southeast Asian countries.

Varieties of Long Pepper

There are actually two types long pepper, India’s piper longum, and piper retrofactum, which grows in Indonesia and tends to be cheaper and easier to find. The two spices prove similar enough in appearance and flavor to be used interchangeably. They can easily be told apart when whole thanks to the color, the Indian version is black-brown and the Indonesian long pepper has a red hue. In India the long pepper is also referred by the Hindu word pipli, in Cambodia it’s called dei-phlei, and in Thailand they dubbed it dee-plee.