Tasmanian Pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) [Poiret] A.C. Smith

Dried berries, which resemble black pepper grains in size and colour. The powdered leaves also can be used.

Of the related dorrigo pepper (Tasmannia stipitata), the dried and ground leaves are used. In contrast, T. insipida has no culinary value.

Winteraceae, a small family from South East Asia and the Pacific Rim.

When eaten pure, the berries have a sweet taste in the first second only, followed by intensive pungency which again does not last very long, but gives way to a strange sensation of numbness, similar to water pepper and Sichuan pepper. See also negro pepper about hot spices in general.

Dorrigo pepper leaves and the leaves of Tasmanian pepper have a similar, pungent taste, without any trace of sweetness. They also share the tongue-numbing power that Chinese cooks are so fond of in their spice Sichuan pepper.

Tasmanian pepper, sterile plant www.biologie.uni-ulm.de

The pungent principle of both the leaves and the berries is polygo­dial, a di­aldehyde with a bicyclic sesqui­terpenoid back­bone. The same com­pound is also respons­ible for the pungency of water pepper, an other­wise unrelated plant, and appears in traces in a Brazil herb, paracress.

In the essential oil, mostly monoterpenoid and sesquiterpenoid hydrocarbons were found.

Australia. The plant is mostly found in Tasmania, but also grows in Victoria and New South Wales.

Genus name Tasmannia (neo-Latin) refers to the place of origin, Tasmania, which in turn is named after Abel Tasman (1603 –1659), a Dutch explorer. Species name lanceolata is Latin for lance shaped, derived from a Latin noun lancea lance.

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