Sansho

• sansho山椒

  Japanese

• kinome

  Japanese

• chopi

  Korean

  Korean chopi is generally a related Zanthoxylum species and is used differently again.

Bright and citric, with a tingling numbness that arrives a second or two later and is milder and shorter-lived than Sichuan pepper’s. There is no heat: the sensation is a vibration on the lips and tongue rather than a burn, and it is produced by acting on the nerves for touch rather than for temperature.

Sharply citric and green — grapefruit peel and lime leaf, with a resinous edge. It is much more overtly citrus than Sichuan pepper and much less floral.

Fresh ground sansho is a distinct yellow-green. Brown or khaki powder is old and will have lost most of its tingle.

Sold as a fine powder in Japan rather than as whole husks, which is the reverse of Sichuan pepper practice and reflects how it is used — shaken over a finished dish rather than toasted and ground.

• Hydroxy-alpha-sanshool — The tingling numbness. It is unstable and degrades quickly, which is why an old jar of sansho smells fine and does nothing.(what hydroxy-α-sanshool is)
• Limonene and citronellal — The citric character, and the compounds that separate sansho from Sichuan pepper on first smell.(what limonene is)
• Geraniol and linalool — Floral and sweet notes underneath the citrus.(what linalool is)

Put it on at the end, at the table if possible. The compound that makes sansho worth having does not survive cooking and starts degrading the moment the husk is ground, so every step between the jar and the mouth costs something. If you have whole husks, toast them for a few seconds and grind them as you need them. And test a new jar on your tongue before you decide whether you like sansho: an inert jar smells perfectly pleasant, which is how the spice acquires a reputation for being a fuss about nothing.

A finishing spice in Japanese cooking with a small and fixed set of homes: grilled eel above all, then yakitori, noodles, miso soup and simmered dishes. It is one of the seven components of shichimi togarashi. Kinome, the young leaf, is a spring garnish for bamboo shoots, grilled fish and clear soups. Nothing about it is a cooking spice — the effect that makes it worth having does not survive the pot.

• grinding — Sansho is sold already ground in Japan, and the tingle begins fading from that moment. Buying whole husks and grinding as needed gives a markedly stronger effect and is worth the trouble.
• toasting — Brief dry toasting before grinding lifts the aroma, as it does for Sichuan pepper. Overdone it destroys the sanshools and leaves a citric powder with no buzz.
• boiling — The sanshools do not survive long cooking well. Sansho is a finishing spice, shaken on at the table, and putting it in a simmering pot wastes it.
• infusing — Whole husks infused into a soy or a broth give the citrus and very little of the tingle, which is occasionally what a dish wants.

Put a pinch on your tongue. That is the test, and it is unambiguous: fresh sansho produces a fizzing numbness within a few seconds, and old sansho produces a mild citric taste and nothing else. Smelling the jar will not tell you, because the aroma outlasts the effect — which is why so many people conclude that sansho is overrated.

• No tingle on the tongue
• Khaki or brown rather than yellow-green
• Grit in the jar, which is seed rather than husk

• Degradation of the sanshools, which removes the tingle first
• Volatilisation of the citric top notes
• Fading from green to khaki

Whole husks if you can get them, and a very small jar of the powder if you cannot. This is one of the few entries in the catalogue where the whole-versus-ground argument is not about nuance but about whether the spice works at all: hydroxy-alpha-sanshool degrades fast once the husk is broken, and a large jar of ground sansho is a purchase that will be inert before it is finished. Buy little and often, and test it on your tongue rather than by smell.

• A distinctly green powder, not khaki or brown.
• No grit — grit is seed that should have been removed.
• The smallest jar available, because it fades fast.
• Whole husks if you can find them, which keep far longer and are much stronger ground fresh.

Graded on husk-to-seed ratio and on origin, with Wakayama material and named cultivars at a premium. Colour is the useful proxy for freshness and is not a formal grade.

Rutaceae

A deciduous shrub or small tree to about four metres, viciously thorny in the wild forms, with pinnate aromatic leaves and small green fruits that split when ripe to release a black seed. Thornless cultivars are grown commercially in Japan.

Japan and the Korean peninsula, where the species is native.

• Japan — origin. Wakayama prefecture dominates commercial production, and the Budo sansho cultivar from Wakayama is the benchmark.
• South Korea — notable producer

Fruit picked in late summer as it begins to split; young leaves picked in spring, over a short season, for the kinome trade. The two harvests are months apart and produce different products.

1. Picking — Fruit clusters picked as the husks begin to split.
2. Drying — Sun or shade dried until the husks open fully.
3. Deseeding — The black seeds are separated out and discarded.Why: The seed is gritty and bitter and contributes nothing. Grit in a jar of sansho is seed that should have been removed, and it is a quality marker.
4. Grinding — Husks milled to the fine green powder sold in Japan.

Graded on the proportion of husk to seed and on origin, with Wakayama material and named cultivars commanding a premium. Colour is a reasonable proxy for age: fresh sansho powder is distinctly green.

The routine quality failure is seed left in, which bulks out the product with a gritty component that has no flavour. Substitution with cheaper Zanthoxylum species from elsewhere in Asia is also reported.

Grown as a perennial shrub over many years. Thornless cultivars were selected specifically because hand-harvesting a thorny Zanthoxylum is difficult and slow.

Temperate, with cold winters. Sansho is genuinely hardy in a way most spices in this catalogue are not, which is why it grows in Japan and cardamom does not.

Sansho is among the oldest recorded seasonings in Japan, present in the archaeological and documentary record long before black pepper or chilli reached the country, and for much of Japanese history it was the pepper — the domestic pungent spice in a cuisine with no access to the tropical ones. Chilli arrived in the sixteenth century and black pepper remained a luxury, which is why a spice that grows on a Japanese hillside held the position it did.

A small trade dominated by Japanese domestic consumption. Export volumes are minor and the product is rarely seen outside Japanese specialist retail.

A recognised material in traditional Japanese and Chinese medicine, chiefly for digestive complaints. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim.