Hottest chili pepper

Before the early 1990s, there were only two peppers which had been measured above 350,000 SHU, the Scotch bonnet and the habanero.^[2] California farmer Frank Garcia used a sport of a habanero to develop a new cultivar, the Red Savina (C. chinense),^[3] which was measured at 570,000 in 1994.^[2][3] At the time, this was considered representative of an upper limit of chili pepper hotness.^[2]

In 2001, Paul Bosland, a researcher at the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, visited India to collect specimens of ghost pepper, also called the Bhut Jolokia or Naga king chili,^[4] traditionally grown near Assam, India, which was being studied by the Indian army for weaponization.^[2][5] When Bosland grew and tested the pepper, he discovered it measured over 1 million SHU.^[2] According to Bosland, this "kind of opened the floodgates".^[2] In 2006, the Dorset Naga (a subspecies of the Naga Morich) was claimed to be the hottest.^[3] In 2012, the Chili Pepper Institute called the Trinidad Moruga scorpion the new hottest pepper, saying it had been measured at 2 million SHU, the first time the 2-million mark had been reached.^[3]

Many of the cultivars developed in the attempt to produce ever-hotter peppers are hybrids of chilies traditionally grown in India and Trinidad.^[6]

The new peppers have been termed "super-hots".^[6] Super-hots are classified as peppers registering over 1 million SHU.^[7]

In 2015, Bosland and his team, using fluorescence microscopy, found that while most peppers store capsaicin primarily in their pith, super-hot varieties tend to store as much in their flesh as they do in their pith.^[7] While for most peppers removing the pith and seeds also removes much of the heat, for super-hots this is not true.^[7] Super-hots not only have more capsaicin than other peppers, but also store their capsaicin differently.^[7] In their report, Bosland et al. call it a "novel discovery that these 'super-hot' chili peppers have developed accessorial vesicles on the pericarp tissue in addition to the vesicles on the placental tissue, thus leading to exceedingly high Scoville heat units for these plants."^[7]

Super-hots should be handled with gloves and using eye protection, as contact with even a single seed can cause skin irritation via chili burn.^[3]

Chili growers compete with one another "ruthlessly" to create the world's hottest pepper.^[2] According to Marc Fennell, creator of the podcast It Burns, the competition "is a hugely controversial war – there are scandals, accusations of cheating, death threats."^[8] According to Maxim, the race has "ignited heated debate" among chiliheads and raised "deep questions about science, ethics, and honor."^[6][9] While competition takes place mainly among UK, Australian, and US growers, the competition in the US is noted for "negativity and fighting."^[10]

The "crowning achievement" is being listed in Guinness World Records.^[6] Guinness named a new hottest pepper in 2023, recognizing the Pepper X with 2.69 million Scoville units.^[1]

According to Bosland, the records are "mainly of interest as publicity for purveyors of sauces".^[2] As of 2013, hot sauce production and sales were among the fastest growing industries in the US, worth an estimated US$1 billion,^[9] and producers "sell more sauce with a world-famous chile on the label".^[6] Being able to claim the record can "make or break a new product".^[9] The developer of the Naga Viper pepper, which claimed the record for a short period in 2011, earned US$40,000 in one month from sales of seeds and sauces.^[11][9] The developer of the Trinidad Moruga scorpion, which claimed the record in 2012, made US$10,000 in two days selling seeds.^[9]

Seed sales are also an important revenue stream for developers.^[6] As of 2013, super-hot seeds were unavailable from commercial seed suppliers, so those wishing to grow the peppers could obtain them only from the developers or small specialty suppliers.^[6] According to Dave DeWitt, in 2013 "a typical Scorpion pepper pod at a farmers’ market [would] go for one dollar", speculating that "behind marijuana, they have the potential to become the second- or third-highest yielding crop per acre monetarily".^[6] A bottle of hot sauce claimed to have 16 million SHU sold for US$595.^[12] Chiliheads make YouTube videos showing themselves eating super-hots as a means of providing entertainment or marketing the heat of a particular pepper.^[6][12]

In Nagaland, India, the annual Hornbill Festival includes a ghost pepper-eating competition.^[4]

Between 2007 and 2012, Guinness "fielded 25 different claims to world's hottest".^[9] As of August 23, 2023, Guinness lists Pepper X as the hottest pepper.^[1]

Cultivar	Image	Capsicum species	Developer	Country	Scoville units	Guinness
Pepper X		C. chinense	Ed Currie	US	2,693,000[1]	2023
Carolina Reaper[13]		C. chinense	Ed Currie	US	1,641,183[14]	2017[14]
Trinidad Scorpion Butch T[2]		C. chinense	Butch Taylor[6] Marcel de Wit[2][15]	US[6] Australia[15]	1,463,700[9]	2011[12]
Naga Viper[2]		C. chinense × C. frutescens	Gerald Fowler[2]	UK[3]	1,382,000[2]	2011[12]
Trinidad Moruga scorpion[2]		C. chinense	Landrace[3]	Trinidad[3]	1,200,000	2012[2]
Infinity[2]		C. chinense	Nick Woods[16]	UK[16]	1,176,182[16]	2011[12]
Ghost pepper[9]		C. chinense × C. frutescens[3]	Landrace	India[3]	1,001,000[9]	2007[9]

Cultivar	Image	Capsicum species	Developer	Country	Alleged SHU	Introduced
Dragon's Breath[17]		C. chinense	Neal Price[17]	UK[17]	2,400,000[17]	2017
Chocolate 7-pot[3]		C. chinense[3]	Landrace	Trinidad[3]	1,800,000[3]
Komodo Dragon[18][19]		C. chinense	Landrace	UK	1,400,000[18]	2015
Armageddon[20]		C. chinense × C. frutescens[20]	Landrace	UK	1,300,000[20]	2019
Dorset Naga[3] (subspecies of Naga Morich)		C. chinense[3]	Joy and Michael Michaud[3]	UK[3]	1,201,000[3]
Naga Morich		C. chinense[21]	Landrace	India and Bangladesh	1,000,000[22]