Pepper Oil In 1993, Zhu et al. compared the composition of white and black pepper oil produced from the dried fruit of Piper nigrum grown in Hainan (China). A summary of the analyses can be seen in Table I.
This same year, Gopalakrishnan et al. (1993) examined the composition of four newly selected cultivars of black pepper that are currently being grown in Kerala (India). Using both GC and GC/MS analyses the oil compositions were characterized as shown in Table II.
Although linalool is a minor constituent of pepper oil, Casabianca and Graff (1996) determined that its enantiomeric distribution in pepper oil produced in Madagascar was as follows:
(3R)-(-)-linalool (81-87%): (3S)-(+)-linalool (13-19%)