A new chili pepper has broken the records of the hottest peppers in the world. According to Guinness World Records, Pepper X is now the hottest pepper in the world.
On August 23, 2023, Guinness World Records awarded Pepper X as the world’s hottest pepper. This announcement degraded the previously hottest pepper, Carolina Reaper which was hottest pepper from the year 2013. Pepper X crossed the 2.69 million Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) which is way higher than Carolina Reaper having 1.4 million SHU.
Pepper X was grown and bred by Ed Currie. He is an American breeder and creator of chili peppers and also known as the CEO of the Pukerbutt Pepper company. He is also the creator of the Carolina Reaper which was the world’s hottest chili pepper from the last 10 years before the emergence of Pepper X.
Capsaicin is irritating neurotoxin that causes burning sensation in tissues. This compound is responsible for producing hotness in peppers. Pepper X contains higher quantity of capsaicin which stores in its locules. The large surface area of pepper X containing curves and ridges helps to store more capsaicin to make Pepper X the hottest chili pepper in the world.
Capsaicin operates by cleverly deceiving our brain into perceiving a threat. Upon consuming a spicy pepper, this compound triggers the activation of TRPV1, a heat-sensing receptor within our body. As detailed by Kathryn Hulick in a 2016 report for Science News Explores, this receptor signals our brain about the perceived shift in temperature, prompting the release of a pain-inducing signal throughout our body.
This mechanism mirrors the sensation experienced when touching a hot stove, despite the absence of actual burns. Subsequently, our body initiates a cooling response to counteract the perceived heat.
The SHU scale is used to measure the hotness of peppers. This scale was developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912, who was an American Chemist.
The Scoville scale uses to measure how spicy a pepper is. It tells us how many times we have to mix a pepper’s spicy compounds, the capsaicin, with sugar and water before a group of expert tasters can’t taste the heat anymore. In labs, a machine called a high-performance liquid chromatograph is used to measure the spicy compounds in dried pepper samples.
Ed Currie, the breeder of Pepper X demystifies the production process of Pepper X. Pepper X was resulted from cross-breeding of Carolina Reaper with other different peppers having varieties of capsaicin compounds in them.
The cross-breeding was carried out over a long period of 10 years with production of 100 generations over the year. The hybrid produced in each generation was crossed again for eight to twelve generations to make them fit for testing the desired traits.
The pepper X is only tasted by few people in raw form. In his experience of eating Pepper X in raw form, Ed Curie unveiled that he was laid for three and a half hours on a raining floor with severe abdominal cramps and pain.
Using Pepper X in raw form is not advisable. One can be questioning the cause of its production if it cannot be used as it is. Ed Curie grew this hottest pepper to reduce the money consumption as it’s little use can produce spicier flavor in dishes cooked over a large scale.