Timur

• timurटिमुर

  Nepali

  In Nepal timur is this species. Sold abroad, the word is sometimes put on red Sichuan pepper as well, which is a different species with a warmer, less citric character.

• qing huajiao青花椒

  Mandarin

  Literally "green flower pepper", and the name the Chinese trade uses for this species. Plain huajiao means the red Sichuan pepper; a recipe that says only huajiao does not mean this one.

• tengjiao藤椒

  Mandarin — Sichuan

  The Sichuanese name, and the one found on bottles of green pepper oil (tengjiao you). Refers to the same species.

• tejphal

  Hindi — Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh

  Not to be confused with tejpatta, the Indian bay leaf, or with tirphal, the coastal Zanthoxylum rhetsa of the Konkan.

Citric and resinous at first, then the tingle: a buzzing, numbing sensation on the lips and tongue that arrives after a few seconds and lasts for minutes. It is not hot. A strong dose leaves the mouth feeling faintly electric.

Sharp, floral and citric — lime peel, lemongrass and something close to lavender — over a faintly woody base. Where red Sichuan pepper suggests grapefruit and warm wood, timur is brighter and more perfumed.

Olive to khaki green husks, sometimes browning with age; much greener than red Sichuan pepper, and the colour fades towards brown as the aroma fades.

Brittle husks that grind easily; any seed left in grinds to grit.

• Linalool — Floral and lavender-like, and the reason timur smells more perfumed than the red species.(what linalool is)
• Limonene — The citrus-peel top note shared across the genus.(what limonene is)
• Hydroxy-α-sanshool — Not an aroma compound: the numbing, tingling principle, and the thing no other genus supplies.(what hydroxy-α-sanshool is)

Pick out stems and black seeds, toast the husks for a few seconds if you want depth, and grind. For achar, pound with roasted tomato, garlic, chilli and salt. For oil, pour hot oil over whole husks and leave to steep. Start with less than a Sichuan recipe asks for red pepper: timur is sharper, and the tingle builds.

Nepali achar, particularly tomato achar with momo; tempered into mustard oil for pickles and vegetables; in Sichuan cooking, whole in fish and chicken dishes and infused into green pepper oil for cold dishes and noodles. It suits fish, chicken, tomato and potato, and it is at its best where a sharp citric lift is wanted as much as the tingle.

• toasting — A brief dry toast before grinding deepens it and drives off some of the sharpest green notes; overdone, the floral character goes first and the husks turn bitter.
• grinding — Ground just before use for achar. The aroma is volatile and fades within weeks once ground, much faster than the numbing effect.
• infusing — Steeped in hot oil for green pepper oil, the base of the Sichuanese green-pepper style; the oil carries both the aroma and the tingle.
• frying — Fried whole in mustard oil for a Nepali tempering, which perfumes the oil and softens the sharpness.

Crush a husk and smell it, then touch a fragment to the tongue. Fresh timur gives a sharp lime-and-flower smell and a tingle within seconds; stale timur smells dusty and barely buzzes.

• Colour gone from green to brown
• Little or no citric smell on crushing
• A weak tingle

• Evaporation of linalool and limonene, which carries off the floral-citric aroma
• Slow oxidation of the sanshools, which weakens the tingle
• Loss of green colour through light exposure

Rutaceae

A thorny shrub or small tree with winged leaf stalks — the "armatum" and the older "alatum" refer to the spines and the wings — bearing clusters of small fruits that are green when picked and dry to olive or brownish green, splitting open around a black seed. It grows wild across the Himalayan foothills from Pakistan to southwest China.

Native across the Himalayan belt, from northern Pakistan through India, Nepal and Bhutan into southwest China, and into mainland Southeast Asia.

• Nepal (the middle hills, notably the mid-western districts) — major producer. Largely gathered from wild and farm-boundary shrubs and increasingly planted; an export crop to India and beyond as well as a household spice.
• China (Sichuan and Chongqing) — major producer. Grown as green Sichuan pepper, a crop that expanded strongly in recent decades as the green style became fashionable in Sichuan cooking.
• India (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and the northeast) — notable producer
• Bhutan — notable producer

The fruit clusters are picked before or as they mature, while still green for the Chinese green-pepper trade, and dried; the husks split open as they dry and the seeds are shaken or sieved out.

1. Picking — Clusters cut from the thorny shrub, usually by hand.
2. Drying — Sun- or shade-dried until the husks split, which is when the colour settles from bright green to olive.Why: Shade-drying keeps more of the green colour, which the Chinese market pays for.
3. Seed removal — Husks sieved or winnowed from the loose black seeds.Why: The seed is gritty and bitter and carries little numbing compound.

Seed content is the usual shortfall — a cheaper packet is heavier with seed and stem. Species substitution between Zanthoxylum species is routine and undisclosed, which is less a fraud than a labelling habit, and the numbing strength of what is sold varies accordingly.

Subtropical to warm-temperate hills, tolerating poor soil and dry slopes; it is a pioneer shrub of disturbed hillsides and field edges rather than a forest plant.

Whole, and ground as needed. The perfume that distinguishes timur from red Sichuan pepper is the most fugitive part of it, and a jar of ground timur tastes mainly of tingle within a couple of months.

• Olive-green rather than brown husks.
• Mostly split husks with few black seeds and little stem.
• A sharp lime-and-flower smell when the bag is opened.
• A label naming the species or the product clearly — timur, green Sichuan pepper, qing huajiao — rather than just "Sichuan pepper".

Timur is a Himalayan wild plant long gathered for household use in Nepal and the western Himalaya, and it reached a much wider audience through China: green Sichuan pepper, from the same species, became a fashionable ingredient in Sichuan and Chongqing cooking in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and its cultivation expanded accordingly. The red species remains the classic Sichuan ingredient.

Used in Himalayan folk medicine, chiefly for toothache and as a digestive, which is consistent with the numbing action. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim.