Light up your taste buds: discover the 6 hottest chili peppers in the world
Raise your hand if you ever bet that you will be able to eat very hot peppers without turning red or crying.
Show key points
- Chili pepper spiciness is measured using the Scoville scale, which evaluates heat based on capsaicin concentration.
- The Carolina Reaper holds the Guinness World Record as the hottest pepper in the world with a peak heat of 2,200,000 SHU.
- Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, originating from the Caribbean, ranks just below the Carolina Reaper with a sharpness level of 2,000,000 SHU.
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- The Naga Morich pepper from Bangladesh surpasses 1,000,000 SHU, making it significantly hotter than earlier records like the Habanero Red Savina.
- Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia), once the hottest, is native to India and boasts a wrinkled texture and up to 1,041,427 SHU.
- Habanero Red Savina, discovered accidentally, held the record between 1994 and 2007 with up to 850,000 SHU.
- While commonly found in Mexican cuisine, the habanero pepper averages 350,000 SHU and is known for its lantern-like shape and vibrant colors.
You may have won this bet, but have you ever thought about what kind of pepper could be the hottest in the world, other than the peppers you usually buy or make your grandmother?
Let's start by saying that this variety is probably not used in restaurants or our kitchens, as it can cause a high mortality rate.
There is a scale that measures the levels of severity in chili peppers
The sharpness (spice or "heat") levels of chili peppers are measured via the Scoville scale.
The highest level on the scale is 16.000.000 SHU, which is equivalent to pure capsaicina. The Scoville scale refers to the amount of capsaicina found in chili peppers.
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Now that we know how chili peppers are measured, let's find out what's hottest in the world.
6. Habanero pepper - sharpness level 350.000 SHU
Perhaps the most famous chili pepper is habanero pepper, perhaps the most famous because of its advertisements in various Mexican restaurants.
Habanero is part of the Capsicum family of China, one of the five main taxa of the hottest genus Capsicum in the world.
It is usually harvested on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, although the name Habanero is derived from Havana, the capital of Cuba from which it is believed to originate, where you can also find surprisingly orange varieties, but the most interesting cultivation of this specialty of chili peppers is in Mexico.
As you can see in the pictures, the length of the habanero is between 2 and 8 cm, its shape is very similar to a lantern, and the degree of red habanero spices ranges on average around 350.000 SHU. You can buy red or yellow spreadable habanero here in our online store.
5. Habanero Red Safena Pepper - Sharpness Level 850.000 SHU
The Habanero Red Safena is part of the Capsicum Chinese capsicum family, as well as the "most evil" Habanero brother mentioned above, and it is not surprising that he was the Spice Champion in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hottest pepper in the world from 1994 until 2007. To be then expelled by Naga Golokia, the next chili in our top ten.
Habanero Red Savina is in fifth place, reaching its peak of 855,000 SHU. This variety was discovered almost by chance, as it was discovered on the Habanero orange plantation, after which it was isolated and then replanted.
On average, the grade of Red Savina's seasoning, "roughly the same size as his brother," ranges from 350.000 to 850.000 SHU.
4. Chili Butt Golokia - sharpness level 970.000 SHU
Golokia hot bot pepper, also known as holy pepper, is believed to originate in India. The name But, given by the Bothias people, means "ghost".
In 2000, scientists from the Indian Defence Research Laboratory (DRL) rated Butt Golokia at 855,000 on the Scoville scale, and in 2004, Indian export company Frontal Agritech measured 1,041,427 Scoville degrees, actually making it hotter than Habanero Red Savina.
As you can see in the photo, the Jolokia boots have an elongated shape ranging from 4 to 7 cm and wrinkled skin.
3. Naga Morish hot pepper - sharpness level is 1.000.000 SHU
Naga Muric, also known as the "snake", comes from southern Bangladesh.
As you can see in the image, it has a "wrinkled" structure like the Golokia bot shown above, but Naga Muric is smaller and features ribs on the outer shell. It can be up to 6.5 inches long. Their color ranges from light green to red when fully ripe.
The flavor is less earthy than the Golokia bot but the spices are much higher, we have exceeded 1,000,000 SHU.
2. Trinidad Moruga - sharpness level is 2.000.000 SHU
Now it's serious, not because we were joking before but are you ready to meet the vice-champion of the chili world champion?
It was in 2012, when Guinness World Records officially declared Trinidad Moruga Scorpion to be the hottest chili pepper in the world.
The intense spices of the Trinidadian scorpion were estimated at 2,000,000 Scoville units, nearly half the pepper spray the military and police were equipped with.
Originally from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago in Central America, it's the size of a golf ball once harvested (doesn't it also look like the mushroom friend toad of Super Mario Bros Ed.) His skin, like the previous chili, is wrinkled, and most of all it is fiery red.
And whoever dared to taste it claimed to have seen a pleasant taste except for the late and destructive effect of its spices. We're not sure about that.
Funny fact: Trinidad Moroga's scorpion is so strong and "angry" that its powder managed to penetrate the researchers' latex gloves causing annoying irritation.
1. Carolina Reaper The hottest chili pepper in the world - sharpness level is 2.200.000 SHU
Carolina Reaper is a hybrid chili of the Chinese family Capsicum (the hottest pepper family that exists) codenamed "HP22B" and grown by Ed Currie, who runs Pucker Butt Pepper, a pepper company in South Carolina.
With an average of 1,569,300 SHU on the Scoville scale and peak levels of over 2,200,000 SHU, Carolina Reaper is the world's hottest Guinness World Record Award-winning pepper for 2013
