Spiked Pepper

Note Profile

Botanical

About

Spiked pepper is Piper aduncum, a Piperaceae shrub also called matico. It is not black pepper. Every source that names its smell calls it peppery, warm and aromatic, in the same register as cubeb rather than the fresh green bite of Piper nigrum.

Scent Profile

fresh_spice is the lead, because it is the only thing both sources state. Wikipedia gives the plant one odour line: 'the matico tree has a peppery odor'. King's American Dispensatory gives the leaf 'a strong, rather fragrant odor, not unlike that of cubebs'. It sits below the published pepper note's 0.75 because neither source calls it sharp or biting. warm_spice follows from the same Dispensatory entry, 'a warm, aromatic, somewhat feebly astringent taste', and from the cubeb comparison, cubeb being a warm_spice-led note here. aromatic_herbal is the word 'aromatic', which both Dispensatory quotes use. dry_woody and cooling_mentholic are the cubeb neighbourhood again, the cooling half supported by 1,8-cineole appearing in the named constituents. green is the leaf itself and the beta-ocimene in the oil.

ScentWheel

Breadthbroad

EnvelopeHeart · ~7h lasting

Family Spicy

Read off the wheel, not a label applied to the note.

Origin

A shrub of tropical America, now widespread in the Pacific. The leaves and the spiked fruit are steam-distilled. Wikipedia names dillapiole as the most cited component of the oil, followed by myristicin, 1,8-cineole and beta-ocimene. Dillapiole and myristicin are phenylpropanoids, the same chemical family as the compound that defines nutmeg.

Usage in Perfumery

A minor spice note. It gives a peppery lift that is warmer and more aromatic than black pepper and cooler than nutmeg, useful where a fougere or a spicy accord needs weight without heat.