Add description, images, menus and links to your mega menu
A column with no settings can be used as a spacer
Link to your collections, sales and even external links
Add up to five columns
Add description, images, menus and links to your mega menu
A column with no settings can be used as a spacer
Link to your collections, sales and even external links
Add up to five columns
Green Sichuan Pepper (Szechuan Peppercorn, Qing Hua Jiao)
$15
Same numbing power, different flavor
Green Sichuan pepper has a distinctly different taste than the red species and has become very popular in Sichuan over the past couple decades, as its fresh, lemon-lime taste is a great match for fish, chicken and vegetables. It is also used frequently in hot pot and noodle dishes, and many people—particularly in Chongqing—use it interchangeably with red Sichuan pepper. Or they combine both green and red in one dish!
Some of the best green hua jiao is from southern Sichuan along the border with Yunnan Province. This single-origin pepper is grown in the county of Jinyang in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan. It is freshly harvested and lightly processed, retaining its full potency.
Though green peppercorns tend to retain more seeds than red, these are hand-sorted to include mostly opened seed pods and few stems and seeds, which appear in abundance in lower-quality Sichuan pepper.
Fragrant and tingly but not spicy-hot on its own, Sichuan pepper is an essential building block of authentic Sichuan cuisine.
Our line of Sichuan pepper
This green Sichuan pepper: A different species of Sichuan pepper from red, it is green when ripe. Fresh, lemony and piney.
Da hong pao Sichuan pepper: A single-origin red hua jiao from Gansu Province that is the most widely used and loved in China. Warm, woodsy citrus.
Flower pepper: What we call the special grade da hong pao that has the largest, flower-shaped peppercorns.
Qingxi tribute pepper: Famous but rare red Sichuan pepper from a village in Hanyuan County, Sichuan. Citrusy and floral.
All of our hua jiao varieties are highly numbing; you may need to use less than you would of other Sichuan pepper, and less than the recipe calls for.
Cultivation + Processing
Sichuan pepper belongs to the citrus family (Rutaceae), within the Zanthoxylum genus, which includes both red and green species, varieties and cultivars. Green Sichuan pepper is, specifically, Zanthoxylum schinifolium.
Contrary to the belief that green Sichuan pepper is simply unripe red peppercorns, the green species remains green when ripe.
These are grown in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan, home of the Yi people. The berries grow on thorny shrubs or small trees and are harvested by hand—a slow and careful process. After harvesting, they are sun-dried, causing the husks to split open and release their seeds.
We then have the peppercorns cleaned and sorted once by machine and twice by hand—selecting for fully opened husks without the gritty seeds, twigs, or thorns found in lower-quality Sichuan pepper. The careful processing also ensures that the tiny oil pockets on the outside of the berries are not damaged.
Our Sichuan pepper is never heat-treated—which the USDA required for many years—or irradiated.
Why It's Numbing
Sichuan pepper’s signature tingling sensation comes from a compound called hydroxy-alpha sanshool. Unlike most flavors, which are detected by taste receptors, sanshool activates tactile receptors responsible for touch and vibration. This triggers a physical sensation known as paresthesia—essentially causing your lips and mouth to feel as if they are vibrating or going numb. Studies have measured this vibration at around 50 hertz, similar to the frequency of an electrical current.
Compare To
Despite its name, Sichuan pepper is neither a chili nor a true peppercorn. It is the dried husk of a berry from a citrus-family plant. Sichuan pepper is sometimes still called “prickly ash” in the West, due to its thorns and similar appearance to ash trees.
As the berries dry, they split open and release their seeds, which are not eaten due to their hard, gritty texture. Lower-quality Sichuan pepper often contains these seeds, along with stems and thorns—diluting both flavor and texture. High-quality pepper, like this, consists almost entirely of clean, open husks.
Our spices are never irradiated, which diminishes volatile oils and flavor, and are not heat-treated. We were the first company to reintroduce fully potent Sichuan peppercorns to the U.S. after heat treatment requirements were lifted, restoring their true flavor and numbing quality.
Similar species are found in Japan (sansho) and Himalayas (timur pepper), as well as other parts of China, but they lack the intensity of aroma and numbing power of the most prized Chinese varieties.
Avoid purchasing pre-ground Sichuan pepper, which quickly loses both aroma and numbing effect.
How To Use It
Storage
Store in a cool, dry place away from light. For maximum freshness and potency, keep bag sealed tightly. For long-term storage, freezing will significantly increase shelf life.
Whole Sichuan pepper retains its flavor far longer than ground—grind only what you need.
