0519-0840 TCXDelicioso

Tellicherry Black Pepper

Tellicherry is the top of the Malabar grading ladder — the largest, ripest berries, sieved at 4.75 mm. Wild pepper still grows in the Western Ghats above the coast that sold it to Rome.

4.75 mm

TGSEB sieve size

Botanical name: Piper nigrum
Known as: Thalassery Kurumulakuകുരുമുളക്
Origin: Malabar Coast, Thalassery
Harvest: December – February

The story

Origin11°45′ N

ThalasseryKannur

Kerala75°29′ E

Black pepper is native to South Asia and specifically to this coast. Wild pepper grows in the Western Ghats, and the Malabar area historically served as the major source of pepper in the world. The port of Muziris traded it to the Roman Empire, to Egypt and to Mesopotamia.

The name comes from Thalassery — anglicised as Tellicherry — a real port town in north Kerala that once shipped pepper to the world. Today the word survives mainly as a size grade for the largest, ripest Malabar berries, sorted on a sieve.

Size is the whole grade. TGSEB passes a 4.75 mm sieve and represents a small fraction of any harvest; TGEB passes 4.25 mm; TG sits below that. Heat comes from piperine, which runs between 4.6% and 9.7% by mass in black pepper. India produced 65,740 tonnes of black peppercorns in 2023.

[ Why here ]

ThalasseryKannur · Kerala

Monsoon-fed vines on the western slope of the Ghats. The berries are left on the spike until the first ones redden, which is what builds the size and the volatile oil that the sieve then selects for.

Specification

Malabar Pepper · GI 49 · 2008

Registered with the Spices Board of India as proprietor.

Measured