Changes

The history and spread of black pepper has been based on the history of trade and access to south Asia, from ancient to Medieval and more modern periods. Europe and China both had developed a taste for black pepper by the last late 1st millennium BCE. It became a spice that became common to many cuisines in the Old World. In the Roman period, black pepper was a much sought after product by the Roman Romans from India. The taste for pepper remained in Europe after the Roman period, but for much of the Medieval period, the control of trade routes by various middlemen restricted its consumption to by only elite or upper classes. The Dutch and later British East Indian Company began to have more direct control in India, leading to a substantial increase in trade of black pepper that also lowered prices and made it a common condiment or spice. Today, the trade in black pepper is once again controlled regions that produce it rather than foreign states.