Collection: Our "pseudo" peppers

Pseudopepers are often called 'false' peppers in other languages. In French, for example, the term 'faux poivre' is used, in English 'false pepper'.  In colloquial usage, the term pepper is used for  both plants from  the gender  Piper from the Piperaceae family  as plants from the genus  Capsicum from the Solanaceae family, better known as chili peppers. Pseudo peppers are all spices from other plant genera that are used in the same way as chili peppers for their pungency.  these two "real" peppers.

In several countries such pseudo peppers are the standard, such as in Japan, where black pepper and chili pepper are inferior to Szechuan pepper,  usually sansho. In Europe, some of the pseudo peppers traditionally used there have been completely forgotten, such as grain of paradise and selim. In Africa, where both of these originate,  the Asian  black pepper and long pepper, the native peppers, even the  African long pepper, a real pepper.

The differences between the botanically different peppers concern both the degree of spiciness and the taste. As for the spiciness, only  Plants from the Piperaceae family contain the pungent substance piperine. Pseudopepers appeal to our pungency receptors in very different ways. Such as with sanshool, the pungent substance in peppers from the Zanthoxylum genus (the Sichuan peppers), which numbs the tongue.

We take you on a world tour with our pseudo peppers that is well worth the effort.