Indus OrganicsMalabar Black Peppercorns, 1 Lb Jar, Premium Grade, High Purity, Freshly Packed

I liked the pugnant smell and taste. And it worked great for me

This review is about my first foray into better mills and pepper.After comparing Malabar black pepper and Tellicherry black pepper (both from Indus Organics) for a year, the Malabar black pepper won. When the Malabar ran out, it was re-ordered and the Tellicherry made its way to someone who liked its soft taste.Both of the Indus products were better than the pepper that came with the very nice mills that were purchased from Amazon, as well as the plastic pre-loaded mill that I bought at the grocery store. After testing, I found the Indus products were so much better that I ended up tossing the contents that were bundled with the mills, and directed them straight into the trash.The Indus Organics had great flavor and tasted very fresh on both products. As expected, when grinding these at each meal, they tasted fresher than grocery store pre-ground products.The Malabar provides a lot of flavor compared to it mass, and that is what tipped the scales in its favor versus the Tellicherry. The Tellicherry was nice, but the flavor strength was more of a medium flavor. When using Tellicherry, it seemed to require more grinds and coverage to get a nice flavor on the food. The Malabar was easier because after grinding a nice pattern on about a quarter to a third of the food on the plate, the job is complete and there is plenty of nice strong pepper flavor to blend with the food as you like while eating.The chosen mills were the Unicorn Magnum Pepper Mill 6" Black and the Cole and Mason Derwent Precision Gourmet Pepper Mill.The Unicorn Magnum is an amazing little machine produces a lot of ground pepper with very little effort. Just a few hand cranks on the twist top produces a surprisingly large amount of freshly ground pepper. It was found that the desired table grinds generally need to be a bit finer than those for cooking, and the pugnacious Magnum excelled at table grinds - so much so that it was quickly assigned to stay and never allowed to leave the table.The Cole and Mason mill is a beautiful work of art, but less efficient for table grinds. After a few weeks of competing against the Unicorn Magnum at the table, the Cole and Mason was sent to the kitchen to handle the coarser grinds more commonly found in cooking.The Unicorn Magnum also spent some time in the kitchen in the early days and did well there. While writing this review, I asked the chief cook if those early days could be recalled. The cook asked for the Unicorn Magnum back. So I guess I'm buying a second one. The first will stay at the table, and the second will handle kitchen duties. The Cole and Mason will be discharged.Overall the one year experiment was very successful. I found that the Indus Organics Malabar Black Pepper, when ground by the Unicorn Magnum mill, combined to provide an excellent taste with very little effort. The taste was so superior that I can't imagine that I would ever go back to grocery store pre-ground pepper.

For those of you of a certain age, do you remember using a can opener to open a (metal) can of coffee? Remember that hiss as the can opener first penetrated the lid? The smell that came out was heavenly, right? That's the experience I had when I opened this jar of Malabar black peppercorns; the aroma was strong and pungent--just like fresh peppercorns should be.If you're one of those who uses powdered pepper from a tin, I highly recommend that you get some of these peppercorns and a decent ceramic grinder. The fragrance and taste will be increased immensely. You'll be surprised how much you find yourself craving freshly ground pepper on your food, everything from meats to soups to salads benefit greatly from just a few judiciously employed twists of the pepper mill.I also like to use the peppercorns in other ways. If I'm making a soup stock from scratch, I like to get a section of cheese cloth, bound up some peppercorns, a bay leaf or two and whatever whole seasonings I'm going to use, but don't want in the final stock. I toss the little pouch in with the simmering bones, veggies, etc. and then easily remove the seasonings when I'm done. It's amazing how much depth you get from doing that.Indus Organics also feature the benefit of being, well, organic, which is also a plus. You know that you're getting fresh, wholesome spices that way. I LOVE this.

UPDATE: Amazon refunded my order and i re-ordered again. It just arrived by FEDEX with no delay....on time. This peppercorn container IS different and there is a seal under the lid!!! I am totally happy now, the peppercorns are awesome, smelling fresh and sealed tight. I will buy this again because i think there was a defect with the container i received. Amazon was very helpful, it is now a 5 star rather a 2.Got my pound of pepper corns.....I think they smell great, however, there was no safety seal. No shrink wrap on the lid, no glued foam or foil seal under the lid... that was weird. contacted amazon and they are refunding my money, going to reorder and record the box opening. Damn shame wasting this much, almost want to wash em and use em. dont know if its worth the risk, better play it safe. They smell real good to me, nice and rich.

I prefer to freshly grind pepper when cooking - the flavor just seems more robust. Since flavors seemed to vary so much when I bought "generic" peppercorns in bulk at the food coop, I ordered some Tillicherry pepper from a vendor on Amazon awhile back. When those ran low, I placed another order but this time ordered both these Malabar peppercorns and the same Tillicherry peppercorns from the original vendor. These Malabar peppercorns seem to have a somewhat stronger "pepper" flavor - a little more "bite." I like that. The Tillicherry peppercorns are a bit "sweeter."My flavor observations may have more to do with these two varieties from two different vendors than differences in the varieties themselves. Who knows? My sample size so far has been too small to draw any real conclusions. So far, I like these Malabar Black Peppercorns from Indus enough to purchase again, though I will definitely use the Tillicherry peppercorns from the other vendor, too. Each has distinct flavor chracteristics.