Introduction

The word pepper, derived from the Sanskrit word 'pipalli', is the 'king of spices' and is valued for its characteristic penetrating aroma, hot pungent and biting taste.

Pepper is a flowering vine in the 'piperaceae' family, where its fruit is dried and used as spice and seasoning. Black pepper is native to South India and is also cultivated in tropical regions.

India is one of the largest producer and exporter of black pepper in the world. It produces about 70,000 tonnes where 85 per cent is domestic consumption and 15 per cent is exported.

At Tata Coffee, pepper is cultivated as an intercrop with coffee, utilising the shade trees planted to provide natural shade to coffee as support trees for pepper vines.

Tata Coffee Limited has 13.5 lakh tree standards with pepper, with an annual production of 1,000 metric tonnes. 25 per cent of the produce is converted into value addition like white pepper, where the seed is dried after softening and removing the flesh of the fruit; dehydrated green pepper, where the colour is retained by a process called freeze-drying and pepper in brine.

Being a large grower, Tata Coffee has the infrastructure for value addition, mechanised de-corning and hygienic processing.

The company accounts for 1.5 per cent of India's total pepper production and is the largest producer of pepper in the country. Tata is a leading exporter of white pepper with a considerable quantity of black pepper also reaching the export markets.

Post harvest processing

Centralised grading and cleaning facilities are mechanised, backed with a state of art quality control laboratory.

Pepper grades

A small quantity of pepper is also grown organically to cater to niche markets. For more information on the different grades of pepper, please click here.

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