Guinness World Records crowns new hottest pepper ever
The Carolina Reaper chilli pepper is no longer the hottest chilli in the world.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of what could happen if you eat the world's hottest chilli, and for a long time, we believed that it couldn’t get any worse than the infamous Carolina Reaper.
But what if we told you it could, in fact, get worse?
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The Guinness World Records has crowned a new chilli pepper, Pepper X, as the hottest chilli pepper in the world, dethroning the Carolina Reaper chilli pepper after ten years.
Pepper X has an average rating of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). To give you an idea of how hot it is, a jalapeño is around 3,000 to 8,000 SHU, and a habanero pepper typically hits 100,000 Scoville heat units.
The pepper’s Scoville score was calculated by Winthrop University in South Carolina, which conducted tests using specimens from the past four years.
According to BBC News, breeder and grower Ed Currie created both record-breaking peppers.
Currie cultivated Pepper X for a decade on his South Carolina farm but remained silent to protect his intellectual property.
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According to the Guinness World of Records, Pepper X’s exterior has many curves and ridges, meaning there is more area inside for the placenta to grow: “A commonly held belief is that the seeds of a pepper are what makes it hot. However, this is not true, as the capsaicin is contained in the placenta, the tissue which holds the seeds."
"I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps came," Mr Currie told the Associated Press.
"Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain."
The world has a new hottest pepper
— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) October 18, 2023
Anointed by Guinness World Records last week, "Pepper X" comes from the same man who gave us the Carolina Reaper
Scoville heat units:
• Pepper X - 2.69 million
• Bear spray - 2.2 million
• Carolina Reaper - 1.64 million
• Jalapeno - 5,000 pic.twitter.com/muDkRmpSkw
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