Pretty interesting actually those peppercorns seem to be an outlier when you think of how most domesticated plants have greatly expanded beyond their point of origin.
Kinda wonder why they didn’t spread so much
Chilli’s were domesticated in a cultural hearth that we currently call Mexico. So I think - or imagine - that all chilli’s ‘come from mexico’ in a sense. Like the way Sichuan pepper corns come from Sichuan. The difference though that chilli peppers have spread very greatly
Well ya thye are new world plants, but you said “not from mexico”, hence my question. mexico has great chilis…
In modern day times, its labour related coupled with taste. Sichuan peppers are the fruit skin of a small fruit. You get VERY little yield per land unit AND labour is high because the seeds must be removed…nevermind the fact people want green or pink skinned sichuan peppers which means huge amounts of effort growing to avoid blemishes, fungus etc. So ther is essentially almost no money in them, hence why even other cheap labour countries have tended not to bother allthat much. Though they are grown everywhere by gardeners and niche market farmers.
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Sounds like an explanation. I wonder do they also not produce proper peppers unless in particular conditions too or something like that?
I saw an article recently about the original source of apples, was pretty interesting, it’s like a tiny remaining area of forest that has 99% of all apple genetic diversity or something like that.
‘something like that’ is my new favourite phrase 
What do you mean by proper peppers? Regular black/white/green pepper corns are from the same species of vine, Piper nigrum. Sichuan pepper is from a citrus tree and only the skins of the tiny fruits are used. The whole dried fruit (with seed) is used in TCM but not as a spice in food for taste reasons.
Edit. Perhaps large confusion arises from common names being pretty dumb.
There are LOTS of species of peppers.
Chili/bell peppers are from numerous species (countless varieties) of Capsicum. A nightshade genus.
Black/white/green pepper corns are from Piper nigrum
Long pepper from piper longum.
Piper genus has numerous other sepcies of “pepper”
Mountian pepper is Litsea cubeba, a relative of cinnamon
Sichuan pepper is one of the handfull of species of citrus trees, and the skin of the fruit is used.
All members in the zanthoxylum are often accepted as “sichuan pepper types”, though only a few species are actually considered true in the chinese sense. Taiwan has a native species used commerically a well.
Pink peppercorns are Schinus molle, admall tree
And so on.
Common names are generally a shit show 
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I mean ones that produce that ‘culinary effect’ I could say ‘taste’ but you know what I mean.
I also read- probably in this thread- that there are other closely related species including ones native to Taiwan, but that have not been used in food.
Oh, interesting, nice, gonna google that now 
Zanthoxylum ailanthoides, Japanese Prickly Ash. Its incredibly delicious, but the taste is not at all like that of the typical sichuan pepper species from china. Different uses 
both are good.
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The seed is the black, hard ball inside the Sichuan peppercorn, right?
In that case, all (cheap, chinese-grown) sichuan peppercorns I bought so far, doesn’t matter in Germany or Taiwan, had those black kernels mostly still in the shells. I would leave it theer if making sichuan peppercorn oil, or remove it myself if using the whole or crushed corns in a dish.
I see, seems I was cheated: those tricky Chinese outsourced this very labour intensive step to me! Bastards 
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Ah now I see. Sorry, I should have titled “Sichuan peppercorns not produced in China”. Of course you are absolutely right: All Sichuan peppercorns likely originally are “from China”, as in “this plant originates there”.
As soon as I have my “regular” status back I’ll change the title
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Ooh, how did you lose it? Did you misbehave?
I thought almost all of us here (or at least everyone who’s been here for a while) had that status. Didn’t realize it could be lost!
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Me? Misbehave? Never! 
As far as I remember, this status is dynamically assigned by the software. Based on…
Visiting every day (I guess I missed a day)
Reading many many posts (I did)
And one more. Writing? Dunno.
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That’s a harsh requirement, if correct. I didn’t realize 100% daily attendance was necessary!
If we can start a petition with the forum overlords to get you back in the club, you have my signature! @tempogain
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Thanks a lot, but shouldn’t be necessary I hope. I’ve been in and out of “regular” for years, so it seems to be some rolling average over the last X days.
Yeah, no worries. I’ve already started the movement. We can’t let them get away with this.
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Maybe some coffee?
He is already on a higher plane growing his own peppercorns anyway
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Yeah you’re 500 short of the required 10,000 posts read over the last 100 days.
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Is that the actual requirement? Wow. It sounds like a lot written like that! How many posts have I read in the past 100 days, just out of curiosity?
Edit: My stats say 249k posts read over 715 days visited, so I guess that would be a lifetime average of 34,800 posts read per 100 days. 
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