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How many varieties of edible pepper spice there are? I know white, black, green and pink pepper, but I'm sure that around the world there are many more varieties. There is a comprehensive list or a book devoted to pepper and receipts with pepper?

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cayenne pepper? – txwikinger Jul 9 '10 at 21:12
@txwinger: no, I don't mean pepper like "Jalapeño" or "Cayenne", but the spice like the black pepper. I don't know how explain better, in English the same word means the two things :-( – Wizard79 Jul 9 '10 at 21:23
The white and the black pepper are the same, the black is older thou. The black one has stronger taste than the white. And I don't know another variety beside those you listed. – Daniel Moura Jul 9 '10 at 21:49
It's actually the other way around, the black peppercorn is the young unripe drupe and the white peppercorn is the fully ripened fruit. Incidentally, pink peppercorns are actually not peppercorns at all, they come from a completely different plant, the schinus terebinthifolius as opposed to the red peppercorn, which comes from the piper nigrum, as do white,black and green. – Pulse Jul 9 '10 at 22:26
up vote 8 down vote accepted

So far, the best reference I found is Wikipedia.

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) has the following varieties:

  • Black pepper
  • White pepper
  • Green pepper
  • Orange pepper and red pepper

Cubeb (Piper cubeba), or tailed pepper

Long pepper (Piper longum)

Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum)

Pink peppercorn (Schinus molle, Schinus terebinthifolius)

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I think you have it pretty well covered with the list you've provided. The only other I'm aware of is the Szechuan Peppercorn, which is an important part of Asian cusine. For example the are a key ingredient in Five - spice powder

You may find reference to things like French Perrercorns but these just tend to be blends of the the others.

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There is also white pepper. There's not really a difference in a taste, but it's good for dishes where the flecks of black pepper would ruin the look.

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