Why is black pepper both grey and black?

Question

A container of black pepper seems to have both black and greyish bits. Why is this the case? Shouldn’t it all just be black?

score 32 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 16 '19 at 18:45

32

Here is a photo of a peppercorn. You can see why a ground one might contain both black and grey bits.

edited Apr 16 '19 at 18:45

lzam

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answered Apr 15 '19 at 14:17

moscafj

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 15 '19 at 15:19

https://www.seriouseats.com/2012/07/taste-test-black-pepper-what-are-differences-in-varieties.html

According to this article, consistency and the darkness of the color is a sign of the quality of the black pepper. Note that this is talking about the outside layer of the peppercorn, not the inside as moscafj has noted.

Why is black pepper both grey and black?

2 Answers2

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