Long pepper is used to improve appetite and digestion, as well as treat stomachache, heartburn, indigestion, intestinal gas, diarrhea, and cholera.

It is also used for lung problems including asthma, bronchitis, and cough.

The long pepper has been used for centuries in Mediterranean, African, Indian, and Indonesian cooking , although it has almost fallen into obscurity in the past few hundred years.

The long pepper comes from a flowering vine with large catkin flowers. Within each flower are small black spikes that are the actual pepper.

The taste is very similar to regular black pepper, and it is a relative of the species piper nigrum, but with a much hotter taste and an almost earthy, sweet overtone.

Ingredient in herbal medicine includes adding long pepper with ginger and black pepper in a popular base ingredient in Ayurvedic medicine called Trikatu.

Indian long pepper (Pippali)is used to improve appetite and digestion, as well as treat stomachache, heartburn, indigestion, intestinal gas, diarrhea, and cholera.