

The World’s Top 10 Hot Peppers

Learn How To Measure The Heat Of Hot Peppers

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Hot peppers have tingled and tantalized the taste buds for thousands of years. In 2007, Smithsonian researchers discovered chili pepper starch grains throughout the Bahamas and southern Peru that date from 6,000 years ago all the way until Christopher Columbus encountered them in the Caribbean. The researchers’ findings were published in the February 16, 2007 issue of Science. From these primordial peppers stemmed a modern cultivar of hundreds of different types of super-spicy chilies.

For the brave souls that enjoy them, these peppers inspire a blend of pleasure and pain so fervent, they could almost be considered masochistic. Concentrated extracts of capsaicin are found all over the country in hot pepper sauce, making it even easier to feel the burn.

There are several dozen naturally grown hot peppers from around the world that top the scales in terms of Scoville unit measurements, with readings that are well over 40 times hotter than even the spiciest Jalapeno pepper.

Here, we’ll discuss the current top 10 hot peppers in the world.

Cooking with Hot Peppers
When handling hot peppers, it’s important to note that peppers secrete oil that can irritate the skin.
For those who wear contact lenses or are sensitive to spice, wear gloves anytime you handle a pepper, and avoid touching your face after handling a hot pepper.

Even if you wash your hands well, some oil may still lurk in the pores of your fingers, which will cause intense discomfort when you remove your contact lenses at the end of the day.

On the general scale of hot peppers and heat, a green, fresh chili pepper is the least spicy; a dried, red chili pepper is the spiciest.

Fresh chili peppers are less spicy than dried ones, and red peppers are typically far spicier than green ones. Remember that smaller chili peppers are spicier than their larger brethren.

You might think that the majority of a hot pepper’s heat is located within its seeds.

However, capsaicin is most highly concentrated within the membrane or placental tissue of the chili pepper. The seeds of a hot pepper do contain a bit of capsaicin, but only that which is absorbed from the membrane.

Women's Health Watch: Did you know that the capsaicin in hot peppers is considered a treatment for osteoarthritis?
To enjoy a hot pepper at its spiciest, simply slice up the whole pepper, seeds and all. If you’d rather make a hot pepper’s heat less noticeable, however, carefully cut away both membrane and seeds from the pepper and discard them.

Some hot pepper preparations call for immersing the chilies in vinegar. This helps disperse their heat throughout the entire dish instead of within an intense few bites.

To dilute hot peppers, soak them in vinegar, discard the resulting spicy solution, and then soak the peppers again in fresh vinegar. You can also use this method, as Filipino cooks do, to make a jarred home vinegar solution for any dish, adding garlic cloves, whole peppers and a bit of salt.

Whether you use the first or second vinegar soak is entirely up to your personal tolerance for heat.

The 10 Hottest Peppers in the World
The relative heat of chili peppers is measured using the Scoville scale, which was developed by a chemist named Wilbur Scoville. Scoville heat units quantify the concentration of capsaicin, the chemical that gives hot peppers their heat, within the pepper.
Originally, Scoville’s qualitative testing method called for a pepper to be diluted in a solution of sugar and water until its heat could no longer be discerned by a tasting panel. The degree to which the solution had to be diluted determined its rating in Scoville heat units.

Today, most peppers are judged according to the Gillett method, which scraps relying upon the acuity of human taste buds in favor of high performance liquid chromatography.

The Gillett method is a less subjective measurement tool that yields results in ASTA pungency units, which can then be multiplied by 15 to convert to Scoville units.

So what are the top 10 hottest peppers in the world? Let the countdown begin, starting with No. 1:

1. Bhut Jolokia
Native to northeastern India, this hot pepper is documented in the Guinness World Records as the current hottest pepper

It topped the scales at over a million Scoville heat units, with an official rating of 1,001,304. Bhut Jolokia is also known by two other names: the Naga Jolokia and the Tezpur pepper. It is a close relative of the habanero and similarly super-spicy red savina.
2. Dorset Naga
This pepper follows close behind the Bhut Jolokia, with a Scoville heat rating of 923,000. It was cultivated in Great Britain and is a relative of the Scotch bonnet. Further testing is pending, with initial scores from the BBC that may push the Dorset Naga pepper even above the Bhut Jolokia.

3. Red Savina
It was the hottest pepper in the world for nearly a decade with a fiery rating of 580,000 Scoville heat units. The Red Savina is a relative of the habanero pepper and was cultivated in Walnut, California.

4. Chocolate Habanero
This pepper has little to do with the sweet treat we associate chocolate with.

The chocolate habanero pepper packs a punch far spicier than regular habaneros, with 425,000 Scoville units in each pepper. Chocolate habaneros, also known as brown or black habaneros, take a bit longer to cultivate, but the grower’s patience is rewarded with a searing hot pepper that is the spiciest variety of habaneros.
5. Traditional Habanero
Next on the list, the traditional habanero chili has a Scoville rating of up to 350,000 SHU. The name habanero is Spanish for ‘from Havana’. The pepper is used in cuisine throughout the Yucatan.

6. Scotch Bonnet
Scotch bonnet peppers are very similar to habanero peppers in both appearance and heat. With Scoville ratings that top out at 325,000, Scotch bonnet peppers are originally from the Caribbean. Scotch bonnet peppers are named for their resemblance to the hats Scottish men wear.

7. Devil’s Tongue
These chilies are another relative of the habanero. Like the Scotch bonnet pepper, Devil’s Tongue peppers have been measured as high as 325,000 Scoville heat units. Their bright yellow wrinkly pods make Devil’s Tongue peppers easy to spot when ripe.

8. Tepin
The Tepin pepper grows wild in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico. It’s tiny, about the size of a large pea, but it’s been measured at 265,000 Scoville units. Tepin peppers are part of the bird’s or bird’s eye pepper variety.
9. African Devil
African Birdseye is also known as African devil, African red devil or Piri Piri. Its Scoville heat unit measurement is 225,000, less than one fourth of the heat of the Bhut Jolokia. It is used in cooking throughout Mozambique and South Africa, especially to accompany chicken and fish.

10. Jamaican Hot Pepper
The Jamaican hot pepper rounds out our top 10 with a Scoville rating of 200,000 heat units. Although it is the least spicy of the peppers mentioned here, it is still over 25 times hotter than the hottest jalapeno. Jamaican hot peppers are used throughout Caribbean cuisine and have been cultivated throughout temperate climates.

While these hot peppers are the spiciest in the world, don’t let their heat intimidate you.

Peppers naturally contain tons of vitamin C, and consuming plenty of hot peppers can help control sinus problems. It may also help you to know that the searing pain we experience after eating a hot pepper isn’t actually caused by tissue damage.

When you eat hot peppers, nerve impulses are sent to the brain that mimic those sent when you have sustained an injury, which initiates the body’s response of increased circulation and endorphin release.
Despite what your taste buds are telling you, you’re not in true danger.

However, every body reacts differently to capsaicin, so you should always exercise caution when tasting a hot pepper for the first time.

These super-spicy peppers can cause blistering and other discomfort for anyone who is unaccustomed to them.

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