In ancient Europe, pepper was once equal in value to gold and was once used as currency. It was an important trade commodity between India and Europe, and a medium of exchange. Pepper was also collected as tribute in ancient Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages, the Venetians and Genoese monopolized the pepper trade, thus prompting people to find a way to the Far East. Black pepper, with its pungent odor, was one of the first spices used by man and was often accompanied by meat, especially beef. The history of pepper use is quite long. As early as 1223 BC in Ancient Egypt, a pharaoh named Ramses II died, and when people mummified his body, they had stuffed pepper seeds in his nostrils. These few grains of pepper seeds in the nostrils of the pharaoh's mummy through the ages, enough to prove that pepper in more than 3,000 years ago has been regarded as an extremely honorable thing.

However, the origin of pepper is not in Egypt, but in the Malabar coastal region of India (present-day Kerala, India). In other words, the history of pepper utilization actually dates back to a much earlier period. However, due to the extremely limited production technology at that time, pepper was a rare luxury item that was produced in very small quantities, or else it would not have been placed inside the mummies of the pharaohs. When the pepper really began as a commodity into Egypt, has been more than 1000 years later in the Middle Ages. As cultivation techniques and regional trade continued to develop, Arab merchants resold pepper from India to Venetian traders arriving from Europe. In order to raise prices, they claimed to the Venetian merchants: pepper can only grow under the waterfall, and the edge of the dragon guard, see how hard to come by. This kind of fantasy like saying, and by the Venetian merchants brought to Europe, and the blackmail, widely spread. For a time, pepper was deified as the seed from heaven, by the European public respect and admiration. At that time, the value of a grain of pepper can be comparable to a gold coin, and therefore was regarded as "black gold".

Why would pepper be treated so highly in Europe? In addition to the businessman's packaging publicity, a more important point, should be related to the eating habits of Europeans. As we all know, Europeans like meat, but at that time the preservation and cooking technology is relatively backward, cooking out of the flavor of food is often poor. The emergence of the mysterious spice pepper from exotic places, so that Europeans suddenly feel bright, after the pepper marinated and cooked meat, not only easy to save, and the flavor is particularly delicious, with a unique spicy flavor. However, Europe is far away from the origin of pepper - India, the local and can not be planted, so the value of the pepper shipped to Europe is comparable to gold. Eating rare pepper has become a symbol of power and status.

The European obsession with pepper and the search for it, and even transformed into a mysterious force to promote the development of history. 401 years, a large army of eastern Germanic people - Visigoths, led by the warrior Alaric across the Alps into Italy, to the city of Rome to launch an attack on the purpose of their war is to ask for pepper and gold. In the 11th century, Roman Catholic Pope Urban II launched a crusade that lasted nearly 200 years, and the search for and looting of pepper was a major reason for it.

By the 15th century, there was still a huge disparity in the value of pepper between India, where it originated, and Europe, where it was consumed. At that time, 1 kg of pepper in India sold for one or two grams of silver; to the port of Alexandria, the price of pepper became 10 to 14 grams of silver; and then to Venice, it can be sold to 14 to 18 grams of silver; and to the European consumer countries, the price of this 1 kg of pepper has soared to twenty or thirty grams of silver. But at this time, the pepper trade between Europe and Asia because of religious beliefs and other reasons gradually interrupted, has been inseparable from the pepper of the European countries are anxious. So, they try to open up new sea routes, and thus discovered the American New World. In order to seize the trade share of pepper, Spain, Portugal, Britain, the Netherlands and other countries have to expand outward, and from then on opened the colonial history.

As a neighboring China with the origin of pepper, also began to import and eat pepper very early. There is a theory that pepper is the Tang Dynasty, Venerable Xuanzang to the Western region to obtain the scriptures, from the Geranium Kingdom to bring back. In fact, the history of pepper consumption by the Chinese must be even earlier than that, because in the Jin Dynasty, the "Museum" has been recorded on the pepper wine and its brewing method, and the Northern Wei Dynasty's "Qimin Essentials" also has a record of using pepper to make hu gun meat.

Similar to Europe, pepper was an extremely expensive luxury in China for a long time. 777, when Yuan Zai, the chancellor of the Tang Dynasty, was investigated, an incident was enough to illustrate how valuable pepper was in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the Tang Emperor ordered the left Jingwu General Wu Min to arrest Yuan Zai, in the process of copying the family, in addition to finding a large number of gold, silver and jewelry, but also found 800 stone pepper. This made Emperor Tang Daizong furious, and immediately gave Yuan Zai death. A powerful corrupt official actually will hoard pepper as a way of wealth, and eventually incurred the disaster of death, which also from the opposite side of the pepper in the Tang Dynasty how valuable.