Timiz pepper

How to use Timiz pepper in your cooking?

Its rich aromatic profile will add depth and character to your dishes. However, we recommend using it sparingly to prevent its flavors from overpowering the other aromas in your dish.

Some culinary uses of Timiz pepper

This pepper can be used in various ways. Whole, it can infuse marinades, sauces, and broths. It can also be grated or its spikes stripped to recover the precious seeds. Thus, Timiz pepper pairs wonderfully with your vegetables, potatoes, and purees, sweet/salty preparations, but also meats and cold cuts. Try it with a poultry liver terrine, fresh cheese with olive oil and fresh herbs, sweetbreads, or even with lobsters, and you're sure to be enchanted!

Timiz pepper reveals all its flavors in a chocolate dessert and will bring a note of exoticism.

Discover our Timiz pepper brownie recipe

The intense tobacco and resin aromas of Timiz pepper

To the nose, Timiz pepper reveals intense notes of Havana tobacco, resin, and roasted herbs. This small elongated spike is artisanally dried after harvest, giving it a deliciously smoky scent. With great aromatic complexity, it is smooth and warm with a hot and spicy trace. This pepper gives off a mentholated and camphorated flavor while bringing a lot of warmth.

Focus on the botany of Timiz pepper

How does Timiz pepper grow?

Coming from the botanical species Piper capense, a close cousin of Piper Nigrum, this endemic pepper grows wild in the forests of the high plateaus of southwestern Ethiopia, at over 2000m altitude. This harvesting required knowing where to locate the plants and not to mistake the variety. This knowledge results from a transmission of family know-how. After the annual harvest, this small elongated spike is artisanally dried above the hearth of the houses: the godjos, built from eucalyptus and bamboo wood bound by enset fibers.

Learn more about pepper

What is a "pepper"?

Discover the different species of Piper

The history of Timiz pepper

The endogamous dynasty of the Manjos, known for their knowledge of the wild world, was the only one to harvest it and used it in their pharmacopeia from the 14th century. Therefore, Timiz pepper was not really consumed as a condiment and it was much later that it was used in cooking. Nowadays, this pepper is a key ingredient in the local cuisine of West Africa. Did you know? This pepper has only been marketed since 1984, which explains why it is still relatively unknown despite its exceptional flavors.