If you're a fan of extreme heat, hot peppers, and world records, then you're about to jump for joy because one chili pepper officially qualifies as the newest hottest pepper based on Scoville heat units alone. Hobby chili grower Mike Smith, of North Wales, UK, unleashed his latest pepper plant creation: the world's hottest chili pepper, one so spicy and super hot, it could literally kill someone who eats it. Now that's some spicy food!
What Are The World's Hottest Peppers?
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As the Daily Post reported, the Dragon's Breath chili, honoring the mythology of its birth country of Wales, measures nearly 2.5 million on the Scoville scale, the standard measure of the spicy heat (or pungency) of chili peppers and other tongue-tingling foods. The weapons-grade pepper, grown at Tom Smith's Plants, has a benevolent use, though; it was developed as an anesthetic for those allergic to other anesthetics, as its oils are so strong they numb the skin. It can be grown as a potted pepper or in a garden.
You probably won't find this capsaicin-packed pepper in a hot sauce anytime soon, though stranger things have happened.
For a little perspective, the smoky-hot poblano pepper measures about 1,000 to 1,500 on the heat intensity scale (about 30 percent as hot as a jalapeño pepper). Bell peppers have a heat level of zero on the Scoville unit scale, with no spiciness at all. The spicy jalapeño measures between 2,500 and 8,000, cayenne peppers are between 30,000 and 50,000, and the tongue-blistering habanero pepper with its fruity flavor charts between 100,000 and 350,000 on the Scoville scale.
That makes the Dragon's Breath pepper, or Capsicum Chinese, with a Scoville rating of 2,500,000 — a full 1,000 times as spicy as a jalapeño — and fiery enough to cause closing of the airways, burn the throat, and cause anaphylactic shock in someone who ate it. When it comes to spicy peppers, Smith was not messing around.
Many of the hottest peppers in the world all measure between 855,000 and 2.4M on the Scoville Heat Units (SHU) scale, including:
- Carolina Reaper
- Komodo Dragon Chili Pepper
- Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper
- Naga Viper Pepper
- Infinity Chilli
- Naga Morich
- Bhut Jolokia (The Ghost Pepper)
- Spanish Naga Chili
Pepper X, or the Carolina Reaper pepper — the former Guinness World Record World's Hottest Chile as of 2014 — comes in at a whopping 2.2m Scoville rating. This pepper was created by Ed Currie in South Carolina, and it's no joke. Grow it at home if you really like it hot.
Heck, the pepper spray used by the U.S. military registers only around 2 million on the scale.
Sorry to extreme pepper enthusiasts and chili-heads, but this is one of the superhot peppers you'll never be able to eat.
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