A Spice Called Maqaw

choi

Florence Fabricant, A Deeply Fragrant Match for Fish. New York Times, Jan 4, 2017 (in her weekly half-page column "Front Burner")
www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/dinin ... n-pepper-taiwan.htm

Note:
(a) "Taiwanese maqaw is also called mountain pepper, but these dried black maqaw seeds, which look like peppercorns, come from a plant in the laurel, or bay, family [these are trees], and are not related to the piper vine that produces peppercorns."
(i) 山苍树
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/山蒼樹
(Litsea cubeba;  落叶乔木，一般高约5至10米; 主要分布在西藏、四川、云南、贵州经华南至华东、华中、台湾各地，还有东南亚各国; 台湾原住民泰雅族人称之为马告（Maqaw），当作香料用在食物中")
(ii) black pepper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper
(Piper nigrum; When dried, the fruit is known as a peppercorn; native to south India; Currently, Vietnam is the world's largest producer and exporter; section 3 Plant: a perennial woody vine growing up to 4 metres (13 ft) in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises)

(b) "Now the owners of Té Company in the West Village, Frederico Ribeiro and Elena Liao, have started importing this mountain pepper"
(i) The Portuguese and Galician surname Ribeiro is the from places of the same name.
(ii) Portuguese-English dictionary:
* ribeiro (noun masculine; from Latin [adjective masculine] rīpārius ‎riparian, from [noun feminine] rīpa ‎riverbank: "a brook, creek or stream (small body of running water)"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ribeiro

(c) I was unaware of it while in Taiwan.