Reference point
Crush a fresh lolot leaf in the palm of your hand.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Green, but thick and dark, not clear like lime leaf. Underneath there is an almost peppery note and a little earth.
Compared with perilla, lolot is heavier and less aromatic in the nose — it leans towards the back of the palate rather than up into the nose. That is why lolot suits fatty meat and not delicate dishes.
Grilled and fresh lolot are two quite different smells. Heat breaks down the green layer and brings out the smoke and the pepper, and that is exactly what makes beef grilled in lolot leaves.
How to smell it
Crush a fresh leaf and smell it. Then wrap a leaf around a piece of meat, grill it over charcoal until the leaf is scorched, and smell again. The two smells are so far apart that many people do not believe it is the same leaf.
Why this one is hard
Because lolot is often confused with betel leaf, which looks similar. Betel is much hotter and more pungent, with a clear phenolic note that lolot lacks.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Lolot leaf
Green family
Lolot is thick and dark, with a peppery, earthy note; perilla is lighter, with a faint cinnamon note and a pungent finish.
Scientific note
Lolot is rich in beta-caryophyllene, a fifteen-carbon sesquiterpene. It is one of the most common sesquiterpenes in the plant kingdom, and it is also the compound that lets lolot keep its smell after grilling — sesquiterpenes withstand heat much better than the light monoterpenes, which are gone the moment they meet the flame.
In Vietnamese life
Lolot belongs to the genus Piper, the same genus as black pepper and betel. The peppery note you smell is not a chance association but a real family relationship — one of the few cases where plant classification and smell classification coincide.