Lai Chau wild Forest Pepper

A vibrant, refined, wild Vietnamese peppercorn with exquisite citrus notes that goes with all types of meat. 

I use it on oven-roasted and steamed fish and shellfish and also add it to brothy ‘nages’. It pairs well with button mushrooms, endive salads, poultry and veal roast. 

The flavors are youthful and enthusiastic, just like the Vietnamese people.

This sophisticated, delicate Zanthoxylum rhetsa peppercorn belongs to the same family as Szechuan peppercorns, but its flavor is not as potent and it doesn’t have the same numbing qualities. This makes it much more accessible to western palates. 

Forest or lai chau pepper grows wild in the mountainous forests of North Vietnam where the tiny Szechuan peppercorn cousins are patiently and meticulously gathered by indigenous people there. It is also called wild hunter pepper, because hunters use it to preserve meat.