I can’t seem to get a straight answer. Some say it’s the Carolina Reaper, some say it’s the Ghost Pepper, or Pepper X or Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper or something. It seems like it’s the Carolina Reaper (most of the times people say that’s the hottest) but I’m not sure.
(These pictures are from my sisters chili plants years and years ago when we were kids and I just thought to put this picture here. These were hot but nowhere near spiciest Peppers in the world).
by DrJagCobra4
17 Comments
Until like 2 years ago, the Carolina Reaper by Ed Currie was the official hottest chili. He then went on to create the Pepper X, which is the hottest right now. Reaper has about 2.2M scoville, the Pepper X rating is undisclosed until today, afaik.
Not official or anything tested like pepper x or reaper but a lot of experienced chili heads say the warthog is the hottest they have tried. Chocolate primotalii not too far behind.
Guinness world records say pepper X but nobody else is able to try it because Ed Currie won’t sell the seeds or pods.
Johnny scoville has some peppers called warthog that seem to be the hottest thing you can actually try.
There seems to be different kinds of heat too as some things score higher on skoville charts than others yet hurt less.
However, unless you’re Johnny skoville, Ed Currie, or the judging panel at Guinness world records, chances are you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Carolina reaper and a ghost pepper. One would leave you in a crying heap on the floor and so would the other.
The hottest according to Guinness World Records is the “Pepper X”, but since no one can get seeds or fresh fruits of it, it is hard to verify, and also there are contenders that might be hotter but are not officially rated or tested. The hottest with an officially measured Scoville rating, that we can get seeds/fruits/plants for, is the Carolina Reaper t (I think). Ghost Pepper was once the hottest, but that was a long time ago, and now is quite far down on the list. And to muddy the waters a bit more, spice levels can vary greatly within a cultivar based on genetics and environmental variables.
It’s not Pepper X because no one outside of Ed has grown one and his claim is effectively it’s the hottest trust me…
Guinness is more of a cash grab at this point, I would be willing to bet some random home-grower or someone in some country with little outside access has a hotter pepper than Pepper X.
Isn’t the heat variable based on environmental conditions AND genetics combined?
Any answer except pepper X is wrong.
But there is a problem, there is a very very small ammount of people that can make a real new variety, because you needs a lot of plants to try breeds and find a plant with a highest capsaicine level, then you need to make them self breed for 7-10 generations to be sure that it is enough stable, and after that you have to test many fruits (from as many plants you can), and only after that you can talk of a new cultivar and how much it is spicy. So its possible that there are plants with hotter pepper then pepper x but are not a real cultivar.
So the 99% of new superHot cultivar that you can find cant be considered in a tierlist because are all unstable.
Carolina reaper has been beated way before pepper x but when you buy a seed of those cultivars it can be 2 milion as much it can be 1 milion.
However I have to say that Pepper X is very controversial because even if it has been tested by guinnes world record (and it isnt a very trusted organization), it isnt public released, so a very close group of person has tryed it, maybe when seeds will be released it will be more accepted by the community.
Remember that Johnny also independently tested The Last Dab ‘>90%’ sauce and it came back at around 70k SHU.
Something is fishy about that whole thing…
Are you looking for average spice per cultivar, or which picked pepper in history was the spiciest?
Very nice
Until it gets tested and verified by some legit labs, Pepper X means nothing. There is probably a reason they haven’t had any tested for real. Until proven, I am not buying that Pepper X is the hottest.
I’ve had a few Moruga Scorpians come off my plants that knocked my socks off.
Officially, allegedly Pepper X. As for the hottest pepper available it’s the RB003, WartHog or Chocolate/Golden Primotalii (it would be hard to determine which of the three is actually the hottest because growing conditions and plant stress are major contributors to the any one plants overall SHU rating)
Pepper X is the vaporware of the chili world. Nobody has seen it or experienced it outside of a testing lab that ed Currie has a personal connection with.
As for actual hottest, it’s the warthog or primotalli.
I agree a caramel moruga scorpion a couple years ago that put me on my ass. First time that’s happened
I have a slightly different question. What is the easiest hottest pepper to grow?
I’ve seen the Warthog mentioned but I’ve heard that the Dragons Breath Pepper is up there at 2.48 million scoville (unofficial).