I'll chime in with a vote for tellicherry. When I was in high school, I bought my mother a Peugeot pepper mill because she kept buying cheap ones and they'd not last a year. Over the years people have bought me various other expensive gadget type pepper mills, but in fact, the Peugeot I bought when I moved in with my husband (27 years ago) still works fine. This darned thing got lost for an entire two rainy seasons in Hawaii (do not ask me how it wound up under the ti plants in the back of the yard), and for one year here (that I can understand, it got covered in snow after a late fall cookout). I went to my local spice man, having noticed that he sold the brand and was going to buy a new one. (Yes, he keeps me in tellicherry peppercorns). He asked me to bring mine in. He took it apart, cleaned it, reassembled it. Oh, I did buy a new mill from him, one that is presentable at the dining room table. But that old, scarred, veteran of many military moves and a few lost seasons in the tropical mud and frigid snow is still my kitchen, working its gears. And I like tellicherries because they are smaller than the grocery store peppercorns and easy to fill the mill with, plus I think they have a little more zip.