Schwartz Black Peppercorn, 35g

Good quality product and grinds well and great aroma

Always buy!

Great just right for my grip . Mine I too big for me now .its a better hold , pepper tastes better in a finder , and I Caen see it too ,

Perfect pepper with grinder, would buy again

Good pepper

Had a pricey proper pepper grinder, not easy to fill and it also kept not performing so bought one of these, no hassle no jamming up and no need to fill, does what it says on the jolly old tin!

really good

Schwartz is one of those brands that sits in most kitchen cupboards on the basis of familiarity and assumed reliability, so picking up a basic black peppercorn felt like a safe and unremarkable purchase. It turned out to be neither. The peppercorns themselves are underwhelming in a way that becomes apparent immediately in the grinder. The aroma on grinding is faint, lacking the sharp fragrant heat that properly dried and stored peppercorns should release. Fresh black pepper has a distinctive pungency that does a lot of work in cooking and as a table condiment, and this delivers a noticeably muted version of that. The flavour follows accordingly. Used in cooking the pepper impact was present but flat, requiring noticeably more than usual to achieve the same result, which for a 35g jar at this price point is a practical frustration as well as a quality one. As a finishing pepper ground directly onto food the difference compared to better sourced alternatives was stark enough to prompt switching mid meal. The likely culprit is age or storage somewhere in the supply chain. Peppercorns degrade in flavour over time and without knowing how long they've sat before reaching the shelf the freshness on arrival is something of a lottery. The jar format doesn't help either, offering less protection against light and air than sealed pouches that better specialist brands tend to use. For a brand with Schwartz's market position and pricing the quality should be more consistent than this. There are independent spice suppliers and supermarket alternatives that deliver noticeably fresher, more aromatic peppercorns at a comparable or lower price. Worth seeking one out rather than defaulting to the familiar name.