PONAPE PEPPER

Ironically, the islands of Micronesia (the group to which Pohnpei, once known as Ponape, belongs) first came to the attention of the outside world thanks to sailing ships seeking a better route to the spices of the Indies. Black pepper, the dried berries of the Piper niarum vine, was and is the most important of those spices.

The Pohnpei Agricultural Station imported 300 rooted pepper cuttings in 1960. The cuttings came from Fiji, but the plant variety originated in Malaysia's Sarawak zone. They were of a gourmet-quality strain, and they loved life on Pohnpei.

What pepper vines love might not seem idyllic to people. They need a lot of water---100 inches of rain a year minimum. The rain should be distributed evenly over all twelve months; they don't tolerate a dry season. They also like it hot. An equatorial heat and high humidity suits them perfectly. Pohnpei lies near 10 degrees north; it has only three totally clear days in a typical year, and no dry season.

In this virtual steambath, Pohnpei pepper vines produce excellent fruit, high in sugar content and volatile oils. Both white and black pepper grow here; they're varieties of the same kind of plant. For black pepper, the berries are picked when full grown but still green, dunked in scalding water, then baked or sun-dried until they darken to the proper color. Oh so sweet!

Even in a near-perfect habitat for pepper, growing a successful crop takes time, effort, and money. Pohnpei pepper farmers start two-foot cuttings of either variety in rich soil and train the sprouting vines to grow up tree-fern logs 10 to 12 feet long. They must prune and fertilize the young plants for two or three years before they can get any harvest at all. The plants will not produce a full crop until another five years or so have passed. Pepper production here was virtually halted in the '90's; these are the first crops to be sold in years. We are brokers for various farmers, helping them make the sales.