Black pepper is prepared by picking the unripe fruit of Piper nigrum plant as soon as its skin color begins to change (veraison). The more unripe they are picked, the more they become spicy. The harvested green berried spikes are heaped for a day and spread on a mat or floor. The berries are separated from spikes by rubbing. After separation, the berries are cleaned and put out for drying. The fresh harvested berries will have a moisture content of 80%, and this has to be dried to 8% moisture content for safe storage. The berries are dried under sun for 4–7 days until the outer skin of the berries becomes black in color with a wrinkled appearance. Small and light berries are removed from the dried produce. After drying, the pepper has to be garbled. The grading is done by a combination of size sieving and weight classification by air blast. The quality of black pepper depends upon piperine and essential oil present in the oleoresin. Black pepper garbled is the popular pepper that commonly refers to and meets the uses of Pepper.

Different grades of garbled black pepper are:

MG-1 – Malabar garbled, Grade 1 to 95% of grains with a diameter of 3.25 mm and a weight of 550 G / L  minimum

TGEB – Tellichery garbled Extra Bold – 95% of grains with a diameter of +_ 4.25 mm and a weight of 530 G/L  minimum

TGSEB – Tellichery garbled Special Extra Bold – 95% of grains with a diameter of  +-4.75 mm and a weight of 530 G /L  minimum

Malabar 500 G / L – in contrast to other qualities, presents a greater amount of “light berries” (grains which have reached an apparently normal size , but are empty inside) and “pinhead” (very small grains, not developed), assorted size and non-calibrated

Specification