Guinness World Records Reveals the Hottest Pepper in the World

Pepper X, the world’s hottest chilli pepper, has been officially declared by Guinness World Records, unseating the Carolina Reaper chilli pepper after 10 years.

It was grown by Ed Currie, founder of Puckerbutt Pepper Company. Pepper X has an average of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

It is more than one million units hotter than the former world’s hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper, which averaged 1,641,183 SHU. A jalapeño pepper is around 3,000 to 8,000 SHU.

The Scoville scale, used to measure the spiciness of chilli peppers, is based on the concentration of capsaicin, an active component that causes a burning sensation when it comes into contact with human tissue.

Winthrop University in South Carolina calculated the Scoville score using specimens from the past four years.

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Contrary to popular perception, pepper seeds are not hot because of their seeds, it is the the placenta, the tissue that contains the seeds which contains capsaicin, capsaicin is what makes it hot. The outside of Pepper X has many ridges and curves that give the placenta more room to expand.

The seeds are not for sale, but they would be available in some hot sauce bottles.