The Verbena berry, sometimes sold as verbena pepper, is not a true pepper. It is the dried fruit of Litsea cubeba, a small tree in the Lauraceae family, the same family as bay laurel and cinnamon. Its berries look like black peppercorns, hence the name, but the aroma is completely different: as soon as they are crushed, they release an intense scent of lemon verbena, lemongrass and lime zest.

The one I offer comes from the mountains of northern Vietnam, where the tree grows wild on the slopes. The berries are harvested at the end of summer, then sun-dried. On the palate they are crunchy and highly aromatic, with a juniper note and a resinous touch on the finish. They have no heat at all: they are used for their aroma, the way you would use a zest.

It is a spice that changes the way you cook seafood. On a scallop carpaccio, a fish tartare or raw langoustines, a few crushed berries bring the freshness of citrus without the acidity of juice. It also pairs beautifully with red fruit desserts and dark chocolate. For professionals, it is also available by the kilo.

Litsea cubeba grows wild in the mountains of South-East Asia, southern China and Taiwan. In Vietnam it is found mostly in the northern provinces along the Chinese border, where it colonises slopes and forest edges. Mountain communities have long gathered its berries for their own cooking: there it is known as màng tang, or « mountain pepper ».

In Taiwan, the indigenous Atayal people call it maqaw and use it to flavour meat and soup; it is now an emblematic spice of modern Taiwanese cuisine. In China, the berries feature in many dishes from Sichuan and Yunnan. Its Latin name, cubeba, comes from its resemblance to cubeb pepper, the « tailed pepper ».

The berries' distinctive scent comes from their essential oil, which is very rich in citral, the same molecule that gives lemongrass and lemon verbena their fragrance. That is why it is sometimes called « exotic verbena », even though it has no botanical link with garden verbena.