Following the Pepper Grinder All the Way to Its Source

If it had not possessed such a monopoly over pepper during Europe’s Age of Exploration, “India might well never have been colonized at all,” remarks the managing director of Cochin Spices. His company is a modern-day link between the world’s most ubiquitous spice and its oldest source. They buy raw pepper from local farmers in southwest India, where the spice originated, and process it. Traditional “outcry” traders, mostly Gujartis from northwest India, then sell the pepper to large food distributors in America, Europe, and elsewhere. Although India is no longer the only exporter of the world’s pepper, or even the largest, the centuries-old trade is still vibrant in historic locales and still influential on the international market. – YaleGlobal