The Carolina Reaper is no longer the hottest pepper in the world. This has been decided by the Guinness World Records, which has granted this recognition to Pepper X, with 2,693,000 units on the Scoville scale. This measurement method was created in 1912 by the chemist Wilbur Scoville and indicates the amount of capsaicin, the component responsible for spiciness, that a food has.
Ed Currie, South Carolina hot pepper expert and founder of Puckerbutt Pepper Company, is the father of the Carolina Reaper: it was he who crossed and bred this vegetable that is hotter than most pepper spray used by police to subdue to criminals. And now he has broken a new record.
Pepper
The expert explained to the Associated Press that it took him a decade to perfect a pepper that provides "a brutal and immediate spiciness." It is greenish-yellow in color and has an earthy flavor once it is heated.
Creating new pepper varieties requires a lot of patience. First generation plants have many of the traits of their parents and it may take years for the desired characteristics to emerge through selective breeding.
Currie grew Pepper
This expert makes more than 100 crosses each year in the hope that only one or two will survive the 10-year development cycle. In fact, he's already working on a new hot pepper that could surpass even Pepper X.
Currie believes hot peppers may be beneficial to people who consume them, he told the Associated Press. But she considers that most spicy tasting challenges that take place on social networks are stupid, because tolerance is acquired over time. For this reason, he does not recommend starting with a Carolina Reaper or a Pepper X.
