Harvest Stage
Five Stages of Ripeness
Origin
Malabar Coast, Kerala
2026 Harvest Open
The pepper
your mill
has been
waiting for.
Hand-harvested at five stages of ripeness on living silver oak columns in Wayanad. Single-origin lots, traceable to the block — from sharp green spikes still wet on the vine to wrinkled tellicherry black cured in equatorial sun.
From monsoon nursery
to your mill
Three years of growth. One harvest window. Five stages of ripeness. This is what it takes to produce pepper worth grinding.
The Monsoon Nursery
Before the first berry
Cuttings taken from proven mother vines are rooted in red laterite soil mixed with leaf compost from the silver oak floor. The monsoon does the work — three months of rain at 3,000 mm, and the cutting becomes a plant with purpose.
Each silver oak host is selected for girth and bark texture. The vine needs something to hold.
The Three-Year Wait
Patience as practice
No fruit in year one. No fruit in year two. The vine climbs, the roots deepen, the terroir imprints itself on the plant's chemistry. By year three the first spikes appear — small, tight, still green — and you understand why this pepper costs what it costs.
Altitude: 800–1,100 m above sea level. The cool nights concentrate the piperine.
Dawn Harvest
Hand-picked before 8 a.m.
Pickers move through the rows before the day heats up, selecting spikes at the exact moment of peak oil. A practiced hand reads the spike — the way the drupes sit, the sheen of the skin — and decides: today, or tomorrow. Wrong by a day and the profile shifts.
Each picker harvests 15–20 kg per morning. No mechanical aid. No shortcuts.
Bamboo Mat Drying
Sun, wind, and time
Green spikes are spread on raised bamboo mats and turned twice daily. The equatorial sun does in seven days what no dehydrator can replicate — the skin wrinkles, the colour deepens from green to yellow to the deep mahogany-black of a finished tellicherry.
Moisture content drops from 70% to under 12%. The volatile oils concentrate.
Grading by Berry Size
Only the bold ones ship
Dried berries pass through graduated sieves. Only those above 4.25 mm diameter earn the Tellicherry designation — larger berry, more surface area, more oil per gram. The remainder grades out as standard Malabar. Both are honest. Only one is extraordinary.
Lot cards are written by hand. Tasting notes recorded before packing.
Current lots
open for sourcing
Tellicherry Bold
Extra Large (4.75mm+)
A slow-building heat that arrives behind the ears. Bright bergamot on the nose, a woody cedar body, long finish with dried fig. The pepper your grandmother's cook would have recognised.
Heat Profile
Sizes
250g · 500g · 1kg
38 kg remaining
Malabar Green
Fresh-Brine (3.5mm+)
Sharp and immediate — a clean vegetal heat with no woody undertone. The green stage carries the most volatile oils. Use within 90 days. Best cracked over raw oysters or a composed salad.
Heat Profile
Sizes
100g · 250g
22 kg remaining
Malabar White
Decorticated (4.0mm+)
Fermented in running water for 10 days, the husk removed to reveal the seed. Pure piperine, stripped of the woody aromatics. A fierce, clean heat with a faint barnyard note that chefs find useful where black would overwhelm.
Heat Profile
Sizes
100g · 250g · 500g
15 kg remaining
Red-Ripe Reserve
Limited (4.5mm+)
Harvested at full red ripeness and freeze-dried within 6 hours. The rarest lot we produce — the window is three days wide. Intensely fruity, almost jammy, with a heat that builds slowly. One lot per year.
Heat Profile
Sizes
100g only
8 kg remaining
Pepper for people
who notice the difference
Whether you run a kitchen, source for a continent, or cook for people you love — there is a lot at Vine calibrated for your needs.
Terroir in the mill.
Single-origin lots with detailed tasting notes and grind recommendations. Order by the kilo with consistent lot-to-lot traceability. We'll send you the harvest report before you commit.
"The tellicherry from Vine is the only black pepper I use on the pass. Everything else tastes like dust."
— Kavya Nair, Head Chef — The Tasting Room, Bengaluru
- Lot cards with harvest dates
- Minimum 500g per order
- Same-lot reorder guarantee
- Grind profile reference sheet
Single-origin, fully traceable.
Bulk lots available from 5 kg. Full documentation: GPS block coordinates, harvest date, picker count, drying duration, moisture content at packing. The paperwork that specialty buyers need.
"We've sourced from Kerala for eight years. Vine is the only estate that gives us the documentation our European clients demand."
— Thomas Brennan, Director — Spice Meridian, Dublin
- 5 kg minimum order
- Phytosanitary certificate
- Block-level GPS coordinates
- Moisture & piperine analysis
Once you taste it, you can't go back.
Start with a 100g sample of our Tellicherry Bold. Crack it over a fried egg. Understand the difference. That's all we ask. No subscription, no minimum — just one honest order.
"I've been cooking for thirty years. Vine pepper changed the way I season everything."
— Priyanka Mehta, food writer — Mumbai
- 100g sample available
- No subscription required
- Whole berry, not pre-ground
- Sealed in kraft + foil
The best pepper I've ever used.
— Chef Arjun Rao, The Cinnamon Club, London
Our clients ask for Vine by name.
— Elena Fischer, Spice Route GmbH, Hamburg
Changed how I think about seasoning.
— Deepa Krishnan, Home cook, Pune
Traceable, honest, extraordinary.
— Marcus Webb, Webb Fine Foods, Melbourne
Three years to first fruit. Worth every day.
— Sunita Pillai, Estate owner, Wayanad
The best pepper I've ever used.
— Chef Arjun Rao, The Cinnamon Club, London
Our clients ask for Vine by name.
— Elena Fischer, Spice Route GmbH, Hamburg
Changed how I think about seasoning.
— Deepa Krishnan, Home cook, Pune
Traceable, honest, extraordinary.
— Marcus Webb, Webb Fine Foods, Melbourne
Three years to first fruit. Worth every day.
— Sunita Pillai, Estate owner, Wayanad
The Pepper
Field Guide
24 pages · PDF · Free
The Pepper
Field Guide
A beautifully typeset PDF covering varietal profiles, grind recommendations, pairing charts, and the vocabulary of single-origin pepper. Written for the kitchen, useful for everyone.
Ready to source now?
Explore the current harvest lots