Steenbergs Cubeb Pepper

Steenbergs Cubeb Pepper, Piper cubeba, is a great specialist pepper. It is difficult to get hold of cubeb pepper.

The aroma of cubeb pepper is fresh and peppery with hints of a smoky Yunnan tea, while the flavour is warming, camphorous, pine-like but cooks to a sweeter woodiness with hints of smoky black tea.

Cubeb pepper, or tailed pepper, comes from a vine native to Java and other Indonesian islands. The cubeb pepper berries look like cartoon bombs that you might see in Tintin books; cubeb pepper berries are black and of a similar size to black peppercorns but with a 3 – 6mm long stalk sticking out of one end.

Axel’s Tasting Notes: Cubeb Pepper – Aroma: Fresh pepper and spice, sweet resinous wood (eucalyptus or pine), smoky tea (Yunnan). Flavour: Warming, camphorous and pine-like with some bitterness, but cooks to sweeter woodiness and hints of smoked black tea.

Food pairing: South East Asian dishes, pâtés, feathered game, roast chicken, lamb or mutton stews (tagines), sausages, goat, chutneys, mint chocolate mousse, fruit compôte.