Hida's Sansho 山椒 (Japanese Pepper)

Local Products in Okuhida Onsengo 奥飛騨温泉郷

We believe that Hida’s sansho 山椒 (Japanese Pepper) features the best flavor and the most stimulating sensation. It is used for various dishes, such as grilled eel, steak, grilled chicken and beef, Chinese and Italian cuisine, and more. Due to the excellent flavor and usefulness in various cuisines, sansho pepper has already been acknowledged as the most popular Japanese herb in Europe. It has recently been reported that Japanese pepper serves to burn neutral lipids. It has also become widely used in home cooking. This product is made of strictly selected sansho peppers grown in the Okuhida region.

HIDA-SANSHO 飛騨山椒 is a traditional company that has been producing “Sansho” Japanese pepper for the past 30 years since its foundation. Hida’s sansho is characterized by its excellent aroma. It used to grow wild in the Hida region, which is blessed with mountains, soil, and water; however, it is now carefully preserved and grown by local people. Only sansho produced in a range of 5km (at an altitude between 100m and 800m above sea level) can give off this a strong fragrance. It is impossible to achieve this fragrance when it is planted in other areas. Hida’s sansho is a gift of nature derived from a miraculous combination of diverse factors including soil, water, temperature, fog (moisture), among others. From the end of July to August, we harvest bunches of pepper grains by hand, remove the individual grains from the bunch, dry them in the shade, separate them into husks and seeds, and mill the seeds. Each step is performed wholeheartedly and by hand.

Main Products Food products that contain Hida sansho (Japanese pepper) as a main ingredient, such as sansho powder, sansho shichimi

Above information from Gifu Prefectural Government, Department of Commerce, Labor and Industry, International Marketing and Planning Office