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Kampot’s Finest, Once Forgotten, Now on the Rise

October 28th, 2008

Fresh Kampot Pepper on the Vine

Kampot, Cambodia – When Ngoun Lee, a fourth-generation pepper farmer, and his wife Leng Sopat returned to their land following the fall of Khmer Rouge there wasn’t much left. Where there had once been 2,000 wooden poles holding up leafy green vines that produce what many consider to be the world’s best pepper, Kampot pepper, there were now fields of withered plants overgrown with weeds. Pol Pot’s army had forced pepper farmers off their land into other lines of work, like medicine or salt production, while inexperienced farmers tended to their crops, inadvertently killing the plants. With few resources, but fewer alternatives, Ngoun and Leng began rebuilding all they knew, their pepper farm.

Gnounn and Ing belong to a consortium of 130 farms under Farmlink, an organization devoted to promoting Kampot pepper and linking struggling farmers with microfinancing, natural fertilizer and irrigation systems to increase the production and quality of their yields. Farmlink was started in 2006 by Angela Vestergaard, 27, Jerome Benezech, 31, and Tot Min Kalim, 36, known as Sok Lim to friends, after they discovered that many were abandoning pepper farming because the world price was too low to provide a living wage.

It wasn’t always that way. Cambodia was exporting 8000 tons of pepper each year in the early 20^th century and as much as 2000 tons before the Khmer regime took over. Exports exploded under French colonial rule and Kampot in particular, where the terroir is ideal for growing pepper, commanded a premium for its then famously high-grade product. During the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, during which nearly one fifth of the population perished, Kampot pepper virtually disappeared from the world market. In the mid 1990s when world pepper prices were high, Kampot’s pepper farmers began planting again, but by the time the vines started producing, prices had fallen dramatically.

Kampot still has a reputation as a premium pepper producer, which is why the name is now misappropriated. Sometimes Kampot pepper is bought on the cheap and mixed with lower-grade, mass-produced product, other times pepper from other regions or other countries is simply passed off under the Kampot name to move product. That’s all about to change. Farmlink and others are working with the Cambodian government to acquire Geographical Indication (GI) for Kampot pepper, which, if it meets all the requirements, will make it the first Cambodian product to gain such status.

What sets Kampot pepper apart is not just the ideal growing conditions and its unique terroir, but also the generations of farmers, like Ngoun and his wife, who have been growing pepper without the use of pesticides, chemical fertilizers or mass production methods. The process of building up farms and increasing production is slow. Cuttings of the plants are planted around wooden poles and typically take 3 years before they start producing and 6-7 before reaching peak capacity.

The vines produce green peppercorns, the immature berries which are commonly used fresh in Southeast Asia for stir-fries, curries and other dishes, though preservation methods haven’t been developed for export in Cambodia. Black peppercorn – complex, spicy and sweet with floral and herbaceous notes – is produced by harvesting the berries just as they start to ripen and then sun-dried for 3-5 days until it darkens. White peppercorn, milder and more delicate, is harvested and dried in the same method as black peppercorn, but then soaked in water for a few days to dissolve the black husk. Red peppercorn is harvested when the fruit is fully mature and develops a reddish hue on the vine. A more rare product, it has a powerful fruity quality in addition to the spiciness of mature black pepper. In each variety, there is a distinctively powerful bouquet and lingering flavor, which morphs over time revealing new flavors and complexities to the palate, that sets Kampot pepper apart from others.

It is these qualities that Farmlink is looking to preserve, and possibly even improve, as it helps small-scale producers slowly grow their plantations. Each package of pepper they sell carries a code that, once inputed on their Web site, reveals the particular farmer who grew the pepper in that package. Ngoun and Leng once had 2000 poles; today they have 600, but with each year their plot steadily grows, and step-by-step they hope to return their farm, and Kampot pepper, to its previous glory.

Currently, authentic Kampot pepper can be found at Blissful Guesthouse in Kampot. It is also available in France at Le Comptoir Colonial in Paris and Le Dock des Epices in Bordeaux. Distribution is underway in San Francisco. But you can also find it online at http://www.farmlink-cambodia.com.

Gnounn Lee and Ing So Pat at their Pepper Farm in Kampot

To the left, new plantings of Kampot pepper, which will begin producing after three years, by poles. To the right, fully grown and productive pepper plants winding up poles.