Black pepper vine and berries.

Aside from salt, pepper is the world’s most important and valued spice. It is used as an important component of many recipes and to flavor foods. From the berries of Piper nigrumare produced several condiments: black pepper, white pepper, green pepper, and “Tellicherry” pepper. Many grades of these peppers are recognized in the spice trade.

Young bananas forming (variety 'Chinese'). Bananas (plantains included) are the world’s fourth most important food crop after rice, wheat and maize.

Global consumption of banana and plantain is about one trillion individual fruit each year. They are either consumed raw when ripe or cooked when hard, green, mature or at various stages of ripeness and represent one of the most significant sources of food energy in the Pacific. Banana leaves are commonly used as table mats and plates. They are also used for wrapping some foods before or after cooking. Banana blossom, also called bud or bell, is consumed as a cooked vegetable dish. The pseudostem (or “trunk”) is also used throughout the Pacific to line traditional above- and below-ground ovens together with banana leaves placed over the food to keep it dirt-free. Fibres are extracted from the stems and leaves and used for various purposes. There are many medicinal uses that are important for banana. The fibre of the pseudostems and the juice of the stem are used in various treatments, such as for concussion, muscle ache, broken bones, cuts, burns, and fevers. Eating banana can also be used to clear fish bones that are caught in the throat.

Freshly harvested cacao pods at Kokoleka Lani.Kokoleka Lani Farms, at 1200 foot elevation in the Keauhou mauka area of Kona, is a 12-year-old cacao and coffee farm owned by Greg Colden.

The 5-acre farm sits on what is known in the area as Tanaka Hill, the highest elevation of what not long ago was the Tanaka Blue Rock Quarry. Greg currently has about three-and-a-half acres under cultivation.

Vanilla beans in the process of curing, Honaunau, Hawaii.

The highly aromatic, cured pod (or “bean”) of the vanilla orchid (Vanilla planifolia) is the primary product. Vanilla owes its properties to vanillin, a compound that is formed during pod maturation and in the curing process. Vanillin is believed to be one of most popular scents in the world. Natural vanillin is expensive by weight, but when used as a flavoring it is affordable.