Kampot pepper helps

The spiciness quickly spreads throughout the mouth. But there's much more: the taste of citrus fruits and thyme, of minerals and a hint of eucalyptus, as well as fresh greenery. Chang Deang observes his counterpart's reaction quietly and kindly. He knows the special nature of his pepper. After all, he is the third generation to plant and care for it. Every day he walks through the rows of plants, which can grow up to five meters tall and climb two at a time on a wooden pole. Pepper originally grows in the forest, where it climbs up the trees towards the sunlight. Depending on the season, Chang Deang cuts back, checks for pests, loosens the soil, fertilizes, and waters. "In the dry season, I have to do this every other day; the pepper plant needs a lot of water." For this purpose, Chang Deang has created a pond in which he collects rainwater over the months.

Between March and June, the harvest takes place almost daily. Chang Deang, his son-in-law, and his two daughters perform all this work exclusively by hand. This ensures the high quality of the product.
Kampot pepper is said to be the best in the world. Chefs and amateur cooks alike swear by the spice from southwest Cambodia. The quantities produced there are manageable. Only 300 pepper plants grow on Chang Deang's farm, which is barely larger than half a football field. "Last year I was only able to harvest 240 kilograms, and that was a good year!" In the entire Kampot province, the annual harvest is just under 80 tons. The plants there produce an average of barely more than one kilogram of pepper each. In Vietnam, on the other hand, the world's largest producer with 220,000 tons per year, the yield per plant is four to five times that. This limited availability also makes Kampot pepper sought after.

Above all, it is its special quality. This is due to the traditional cultivation methods on the predominantly small farms, the very humid and warm climate near the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and the mineral-rich and permeable soils. In Kampot, pepper also often grows on old plants that have developed deep roots. Furthermore, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are prohibited. Chang Deang fertilizes exclusively with cow dung and guano. The farmers collect bat droppings using tarps under trees from which the bats hang. Other farmers also make fertilizer from rice paddy crabs, beef bones, or shrimp shells. Chang Deang keeps pests away with manure made from neem or tobacco.

Most of these methods are enshrined in the rules of the Kampot Pepper Promotion Association (KPPA), which represents almost 350 producers from the region. Only they are allowed to call their product Kampot pepper. The relatively large La Plantation, a showcase farm known for its agrotourism and producing roughly a third of all Kampot pepper, is a member of the association. However, the majority of producers work farms the size of Chang Deang. But how did these small farmers, many of whom have little or no schooling and most have never left their village, conquer the kitchens of the world? It has a lot to do with Sébastien Lesieur. "I knew Kampot pepper from my grandmother in France." The 44-year-old Frenchman with round glasses and short gray hair sits at a wooden table in a villa on the outskirts of Kampot, the headquarters of his social enterprise Farmlink. On the table are jars of red, white, and green peppercorns. Tall hibiscus bushes bloom outside the window. Mango and neem trees provide shade.

Sébastien Lesieur has lived in Cambodia for over twenty years. Before that, he worked as a communications engineer in Paris. Boredom and dreariness drove him to Southeast Asia. In Cambodia, he initially worked in development services. Then he founded Farmlink. The organization processes and markets pepper from up to eighty small producers in the region. It helps farmers improve cultivation methods and pre-finance their harvest. Most importantly, it provides them with access to markets in Europe and pays a fair price. "We pay Farmlink farmers twice as much as other traders and processors in Kampot and ten times what a pepper farmer currently receives in Vietnam."

It was also the French, as a colonial power, who introduced pepper cultivation in Kampot to meet domestic demand. Of the 8,000 tons of Kampot pepper produced in the region at the beginning of the 20th century, over half went to France. As recently as 1960, there were around one million pepper plants in Kampot. This came to an abrupt end in 1975, however, after the Khmer Rouge established their reign of terror following a long civil war that claimed the lives of up to 2.2 million Cambodians. Pepper plantations were converted into rice paddies through forced labor. Kampot pepper fell into obscurity. Although the Khmer Rouge were overthrown by the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, they managed to maintain a presence as a guerrilla army in some provinces and regions, including in the mountains of Kampot. It was not until the end of the 1990s that the small country, now home to just under 17 million inhabitants, finally found peace. Since the 2000s, the revival of pepper cultivation in the province has been underway. Founded in 2005, Farmlink has been there practically from the beginning. The number of farmers represented and the quantities of pepper vary from year to year. Overall, however, sales are increasing significantly. "Ten years ago, it was just five to six tons; today we market over twenty tons per year." Farmlink thus exports a quarter of Kampot Province's entire harvest to the world. The gourmet pepper goes primarily to France and Germany, where it is primarily distributed by Hennes Finest . The dedicated pepper trade, comprised of three former sports students, runs a pepper boutique in Cologne, featuring the very best Kampot products. Farmlink also sells its spicy peppercorns to the USA and Australia.