The aroma of black pepper is attributed to the essential oil present in the spice, which can be recovered by steam distillation or water distillation. The essential oil contains mainly a mixture of terpenic hydrocarbons and their oxygenated compounds with boiling points in the range of 80 to 200°C.
In ancient Chinese and Indian medicine, black pepper was used as a natural medicinal agent for the treatment and alleviation of pain, chills, rheumatism, influenza, muscular pains, chills, and fevers. “Piperine which is a naturally occurring alkaloid is the major bio‐active component of pepper, which imparts pungency and biting taste to it. It is isolated as a light yellow crystalline powder from the extract of Black pepper with minimum purity of 95%. It has many health benefits as anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and It has the quality of increasing bioavailability and efficacy of different nutraceutical compounds. Curcumin when used in combination with piperine can increase the bioavailability.
Black pepper oleoresin is the standardized extract obtained by the solvent extraction of ground pepper and it represents the total pungency and flavor constituents of pepper. Oleoresin offers considerable advantages over whole or ground spices in that they are uniform in composition as well as strength. Contaminants like mold and fungus are absent in the oleoresin and hence can be directly added to any food material after adjusting the flavor concentration. The extractives are usually made available in both oil soluble and water dispersible forms and in dry forms of the extractives.
From pepper oleoresin, numerous secondary products such as emulsions, solubilized spices, dry soluble spices, encapsulated spices, heat resistant spices, fat-based spices etc. Dry soluble pepper is prepared by dispersing the standardized oleoresin onto an edible carrier like salt, dextrose, etc. to give a product having a flavor strength equal to that of a good average quality ground pepper.
Unripe green pepper corns are preserved in salt and vinegar. They're much fresher tasting than white or black peppercorns, with a mild, tingling heat. Green peppercorns in brine are widely used by food , meat industries in European countries. Green peppercorns in brine are much softer than dried peppercorns. This makes them particularly suited to sauces where a crunchy texture may detract from the dish. Green peppercorns in brine are the chef's favorite ingredient when it comes to making a peppercorn sauce for steak.
Green peppercorns from the Piper nigrum plant are harvested at a different stage of ripeness (tender berries) and dehydrated quickly to preserve their color which has a mild fruity aroma compared to intense flavor of black pepper corns. The health benefits of green peppercorns come from the fact that they contain Piperine (an alkaloid believed to have a range of health benefits), Minerals (both iron and calcium), antioxidants etc.