Black Pepper

Very pretty red-black, almost brown, with semi-empty seed locules . 3” wide, 5” long, very few seeds. From J&L Gardens. (There is also an all-red variety. This is not that one.) // Black Pepper is of Cuban origin but became popular in the Soviet Union, where it received the Russian names Kubinskiy Pertsevidnyi Chornyi (“Cuban Pepper-Shaped Black”) and Kubinskiy Chornyi Peretz (Cuban Black Pepper). Soviet military families and agricultural exchanges brought the seeds back from Cuba during the long Cold-War alliance (especially 1960s–1990s), and it was further selected and maintained in Russian and Eastern-European gardens. In the West it remained virtually unknown until the 2010s. The specific line that won widespread acclaim (including the unofficial 2017 taste-test victory) came through the late Bill Malin (SpudLeafWillie), who received seeds from Iva Graska of Slovenia.