Cubeb Pepper

Cubeb, or tailed pepper, is a climbing pepper vine grown mainly in Java and Sumatra, sometimes called Java pepper for its main growing region. Its dried berries resemble black peppercorns but keep a small attached stalk, the tail that gives the spice its common name, and carry a pungent, bitter and persistently aromatic flavor from an essential oil rich in monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. Cubeb reached medieval Europe through Arab trade routes from India and became one of the valued spices of the Middle Ages before falling out of common Western use; it remains prominent in Moroccan cooking, both in savory dishes and pastries and as a component of the spice blend ras el hanout.