The color can be green, red, yellow, orange and, more rarely, white, purple and brown depending on when they are harvested.
Green peppers are unripe bell peppers, while the others are all ripe, with the color variation due to cultivar selection.
Because they are unripe, green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow, orange, or red peppers, which all taste similar.
The taste of ripe peppers can also vary with growing conditions and post-harvest storage treatment; the sweetest are fruit allowed to ripen fully on the plant in full sunshine, while fruit harvested green and after-ripened in storage are less sweet.
Peppers were grown in Central and South America in pre-Columbian times. Pepper seeds were later carried to Spain in 1493 and from there spread to other European and Asian countries.