Tanned skin and calluses on the hands – growing pepper is not easy

If you ever travel to the Cambodian region of Kampot, you will definitely come across strange plantations covered with palm leaves, which may resemble domestic hop fields. As you probably suspect, these are plantations of black pepper, which, thanks to favorable climatic conditions and a traditional approach to its cultivation, produce the best peppercorns in the world right here. They are the main livelihood of about a few hundred local farmers, who come to the plantations every day under the sunlight to take care of their black gold, as the locals call their pepper.

Farmers have to deal with several natural elements at once

It is precisely the sharp sun rays that are the reason why individual pepper vines are covered with palm leaves, which protect them from scorching. This is also taken care of by the shields of the Bokor Mountains, which provide much-needed shade. 

However, the reason why farmers have their hands full every day with their plantations is not the sun, but primarily pests. There are several ways to combat them. The less responsible ones use chemical pesticides, but you will not encounter their pepper with us. Our pepper comes only from farms that deal with pests using traditional natural methods. These are also supplemented by manure and guano obtained from caves inhabited by bats, which nourish the plants in the right way.

There is not a day when farmers do not check all the grains from the pepper plantations

The harvest season comes between February and May. During this time, the hardest work begins, when farmers manually pick individual clusters of Kampot peppercorns, which they then process further. The processing procedure is no less demanding; the grains must be separated from the stem, briefly boiled, and then spread out on mats to dry in the sun, during which they acquire their characteristic coloring. Outside the harvest season, farmers also enjoy a lot of work, mainly planting or daily checking of the grains – for example, red Kampot pepper is picked only from fully ripe berries, so a whole day of hard work might bring you just a small cup of pepper.

After harvesting, each grain is carefully sorted with tweezers (due to their size), packed, and shipped. Read about how even the Package itself can be demanding! Therefore, pepper cultivation is very labor-intensive work, leaving the neck sunburned and hands full of calluses. Historically, farmers were not adequately rewarded for their hard work. And this is exactly what we at .pepper..field are trying to change.