The first references to the cultivation of La Vera paprika date from the sixteenth-century, when it was cultivated in the Monastery of Yuste (Cuacos de Yuste, La Vera district) by the Hieronymite friars. Cultivation gradually spread from La Vera to neighbouring areas, the Campo Arañuelo, Valle del Ambroz and Valle del Alagón, becoming steadily more valued by farmers because of its profitability.

The industrial process for obtaining paprika began at the end of the seventeenth-century and expanded substantially in the mid-eighteenth-century. At that time the chillies were ground in water-powered flour mills located by streams. The coming of electricity to La Vera meant that electric mills could be used, leading to substantial improvements in the industry, which began to concentrate on producing paprika.

The varieties of chilli used for producing paprika are native ones belonging to the botanical species Capsicum annum L. and Capsicum longum L., the former being slightly oblate and the latter longer. The first group includes the Bola varieties-population and the second the Ocales varieties-population, also known as Agridulce de la Vera. These are very hardy varieties and very well adapted to the soil and climate of the area. Their splendid acclimatisation is the reason why they have not been replaced by varieties from elsewhere. Another important factor justifying the use of local vegetative material is that it is completely adapted to the system of drying by smoke, used in La Vera from the seventeenth-century to the present day.

The use of indigenous varieties, smoke-drying and the use of stone mills in La Vera since the seventeenth-century differentiates the paprika produced there from that produced elsewhere in the world. It has its own personality, so that the paprika produced in the north of Cáceres using the system described above is known as La Vera paprika.