Kampot Pepper

Kampot pepper is a cultivar of black pepper that’s only grown in the Kampot and Kep provinces of southern Cambodia. The mineral-rich coastal terroir gives it an unusually complex, aromatic character: eucalyptus, mint, citrus, and a clean, fiery heat. French colonists shipped it to Paris a century ago to season the steak au poivre of the finest restaurants. Later, under the Khmer Rouge, it was almost entirely wiped out, but was revived by a handful of family farms in the 2000s. It is now Cambodia’s first protected product, and the pepper that many chefs are reaching for above all others.