He has recently developed Pepper X, which is a result of cross breeding several plants with exceptionally high capsaicin content. In his quest to maintain the top spot of hottest chili in the world, Ed Currie continued with his cross breeding to produce an even hotter chili pepper. The Trindad Moruga Scorpion was knocked of the top spot by the Carolina Reaper. Over the years it has been held by the Red Savina, the Naga Viper and the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. The top spot in chili rankings has changed many times over the years, and there is fierce competition for the number one spot. The headaches only lasted several seconds at a time, but appear out of the blue and can carry on for a number of days. It is advisable to eat these chilies with caution as the extreme heat produced can lead to severe headaches, that have been named ‘thunderclap headaches”. Its initial sweet taste soon gives ways to its fiery burn. The new pepper was given the names Reaper due to the shape of its tail. He crossed the La Soufriere pepper which originates from the island of St Vincent in the Caribbean and the Naga Viper chili from Pakistan. The chili pepper was bred specifically for its extreme heat by Ed Currie. These chilies originate from Rock Hill in South Carolina, and contain a large quantity of capsaicin. On average the Carolina Reapers delivers a heat kick of 1 569 300 Scoville Heat units. The title of the World’s Hottest Chili goes to the Carolina Reaper. The table below gives some values of some of the hottest chilies in the world – with the Carolina Reaper topping the list. Obviously a chili pepper is not made of pure capsaicin, but the world’s hottest chilies have very high ratings on the Scoville Heat Scale. To put this into perspective, standard pepper spray (as used in self-defence) has a rating of between 2 000 000 and 5 300 000 SHU.

On the Scoville heat scale pure capsaicin has a value of 15 000 000 to 16 000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). He used human tasters in his experiments and recorded the spiciness of various chili peppers. He investigated the pungency of a range of chili peppers while working at the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company, originally calling the test for heat the “Scoville Organoleptic Test”. The units are names after Wilbur Scoville, who was an American pharmacist. These are the chemical compounds that cause the sensation of heat when chilies are eaten, and it makes sense that the greater the concentration of this compound, the hotter the chili will be. The scale is based on the amount of capsaicinoids present in the chili – with capsaicin being the main constituent.

The Scoville scale is a measure of the heat of the chili pepper and is recorded as Scoville heat units (SHU).

Scoville scale peppers carolina reaper