Que? I'm aware of chilli peppers playing a role too. At various points upthread I've referred to both chilli pepper and black pepper as playing a role in the demise of long pepper. I also understand that long pepper is not
just a more intense heat than black pepper, since it has a more complex flavour (reportedly, I haven't managed to try this particular spice yet).
If you have any reliable sources on how and when Cornish peppers were adopted (and, if later, replaced by black pepper), I'd appreciate references for them. The ones I've read (as per above) assumed that it was introduced as an ornamental into gardens and went wild (which it certainly has) and was then adopted as a spice from there. Of course, they were assuming that it happened this way because of the lack of realisation that Cornish peppers were the same plant as It may well have happened completely differently, which is why I'd welcome a more reliable source if you know of one.
More broadly, if you don't attribute it to changing tastes, I'd appreciate your view on why formerly popular spices such as galangal and asafoetida went out of vogue (mostly) in Europe.
I'm aware of Van Tassel and (at least in broad strokes) the government land lease support he received. The point remains that Hawaii was making an Australian native crop more successful as an export crop at a time when Australians were unable to market macadamias on a wide scale even within Australia. Of course macadamia was not a replacement crop, but as far as I know the general attitude of Australian plants being inferior persisted in Australia until well into the twentieth century (with rare exceptions).
As noted, we disagree. In my experience, Tasmanian peppers and/or Dorrigo peppers are preferred by the majority of people who have the choice of those or black pepper, in situations where they haven't paid for either. I base this on providing them to guests over a number of years, guests from both Australia and overseas, and
without making any attempt to make trying them appear patriotic or pro-Australian, and with repeat guests who have used them for years and are not simply being polite about using them because offered (indeed, having asked for supplier details and ordering them themselves). Is this a biased sample? Perhaps, but I haven't deliberately chosen people who are interested in bushfoods, so if there is any bias, it's unconscious and not linked to country of origin.
In terms of modern commercial exploitation, however, at the moment these spices remain niche both because of limited supply, wild-harvesting and consequent high cost. In Australia, Tasmanian peppers cost approximately 7 times the price of black pepper, so naturally they remain niche even if preferred. In turn, they are expensive because there is insufficient cultivation and they are mostly wild-harvested, with a total production of Tasmanian peppers of perhaps 4 tonnes per year (source:
here). Cultivation
is spreading slowly for Tasmanian peppers, mostly for the overseas market (as per previous source); I haven't read much of anything about Dorrigo peppers being cultivated successfully for export. Increasing cultivation will lead to both more reliable supply, but also cheaper cost because of more efficient harvesting, economies of scale, etc.
Given what has been observed of their popularity with those who have tried them, and the slow but steady increase in cultivation, I think it's reasonable to expect that they can grow in popularity to a major spice. Not guaranteed, of course, but entirely reasonable.