Watch this before cooking with black pepper! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
Watch this before cooking with black pepper!
Black pepper (Piper nigrum)
🍃 Watch this before cooking with black pepper!
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is famous for its berries, but the leaves are edible too, and in some regions they’re used just like betel leaves or bay leaves. Here are a few ways you can use them:
Cooking wrap: Fresh leaves can be used to wrap fish, meat, or rice before steaming or grilling, similar to banana or betel leaves. They add a mild peppery aroma.
Flavoring curries and soups: Whole leaves can be simmered in curries, broths, or stews to infuse a gentle peppery note, then removed before serving (like bay leaves).
Herbal teas: Fresh or dried leaves can be steeped with ginger, turmeric, or lemongrass to make a warming tea traditionally used for digestion and colds.
Chutneys and pastes: In South India, young pepper leaves are ground with coconut, tamarind, and chilies to make a tangy chutney.
Medicinal uses: Folk remedies use the leaves for coughs, sore throats, and as a poultice for muscle aches.
🍛 Black pepper leaf chutney
♨️Lightly saute 6-8 pepper leaves in a little oil.
♨️Blend with 1/2 cup grated coconut, 2 green chilies, tamarind, salt, and cumin.
♨️Optional: top with a quick tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves.
♨️Serve with rice or dosa.
☕️ Pepper leaf tea - when you feel under the weather
Boil 2-3 leaves with a cup of water.
Add a slice of ginger and a pinch of turmeric (optional).
Simmer 5 minutes, strain, and sweeten with honey.
Both recipes give a warm, peppery aroma without being too spicy. Pepper leaves are milder than the berries, so you’ll get aroma more than heat.
Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.
Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered!
Costa Rican Guava, Cas Guava - Psidium friedrichsthalianum
Zero Sugar fruit: forget lemonade - new perfect summer drink discovered!
🍋 Costa Rican Guava, or Cas Guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum) is the boldest fruit you can grow for refreshing drinks. Its flavor is sharp, tangy, and unforgettable - perfect for anyone who loves acidic fruit. Cas Guava has sugar at all, unless you decide to add some.
🍋 The trees are super prolific - even young ones fruit heavily, and we make gallons of juice at Top Tropicals.
🍋 The best part? You can freeze the fruit or boil it into a concentrate with a bit of sugar. That drink lasts in the fridge for months without going bad, thanks to Cas Guava’s natural antibacterial punch.
🍋 Cas Guava juice is Costa Rica’s traditional Agua de Cas - tart, refreshing, and perfect for summer heat. And if you save enough, you’ll still be sipping it through the winter.
♨️ Agua de Cas Quick Recipe We boiled this fruit and the drink lasted for months!
▫️Boil halved fruits in water with sugar to taste
▫️Simmer 5-10 minutes, let sit, then mash the softened fruit to release all the flavor
▫️Strain through a colander, bottle, and refrigerate - just dilute with water when serving
✔️ Why choose Cas Guava?
• Packed with vitamin C - four times more than lemons - for a powerful immune boost.
• Rich in antioxidants to combat stress and inflammation.
• Hardy and low-maintenance, thriving in poor soils and resisting pests.
