“Cacio e Pepe easily elevates pastas, vegetables and fritters with cheesy complexity. Generously shake this pepper-forward Italian classic into your pasta and stir with a touch of butter to watch the flavors come alive, giving you a robust burst of just-right heat and depth.” - Marc

• Origin: Zanzibar, Tanzania (pepper), Bangka Island, Indonesia (white pepper)
• 2.1oz (61g) glass container  
• Ingredients: Romano cheese powder, Zanzibar black pepper, fermented white pepper, garlic powder. 
• Contains milk 
• Cooking tips: Spaghetti, mashed potatoes, popcorn.

Burlap and Barrel Sourcing 

This Burlap & Barrel spice blend was created in collaboration with Chef Marc Murphy. Marc explains, "My goal with these blends is to show the home cook how flavorful they can make basic dishes simply by using these incredible spices and herbs. This is wicked simple stuff!". 

The award-winning, vine-ripened Zanzibar Black Peppercorns are carefully hand-picked and sun-dried for a bright, lemony and spicy peppercorn that's unlike anything else on the planet. These are rich, chocolate-colored peppercorns with dense wrinkles and a bright, fruity spiciness.

The peppercorns grow on the sloped hills of Pemba Island among coconut, cinnamon, and clove trees, and the vanilla vines that climb up them. The lush environment along the sandy soil produces these smaller, more intense peppercorns. 

B & B source black pepper for the Cacio E Pepe and Chef's Best Friend blend from a cooperative of smallholder artisan farmers on the Zanzibar islands off of the eastern coast of Tanzania, many of whose families have been growing pepper and other spices (including our Cinnamon Verum, Pemba Cloves and Stone Nutmeg) for generations. Black peppercorns grow in bunches, like grapes, on a climbing vine and are mostly harvested while still green. B&B peppercorns are ripen a little longer, where the pepper turns more orange, before it is hand-picked and sun-dried into a rich chocolate-colored peppercorn berry.

Bangka Island in Indonesia is famous for the particular fermentation process that farmers use to process their peppercorns, picking fresh pepper and soaking it in open-air fermentation pools for two weeks, using the natural sugar in the peppercorn fruit to create a white pepper that's savory, cheesy and unlike any other we've tasted.

Photos and information provided by Burlap & Barrel