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Indian Chile Update
By Dave DeWitt
Recently we reported on claims that scientists in India had tested the ‘Tezpur’ chile at an astounding 855,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), making it the hottest chile in the world (see Indians Claim Hottest Chile). We were suspicious of the claim because the ‘Tezpur’ was said to be of the frutescens species, and no frutescens has ever tested anywhere near that level. In fact, the previous hottest chile, the ‘Red Savina’ tested at 577,000, the highest ever for any chile in general and the chinense species in particular. A rating of 877,000 SHU would mean that a single chile is as hot as many extracts of oleoresin capsicum.
We have located the published report on the ‘Tezpur’ chile as published in the journal ‘Current Science," August 10, 2000. It can be found online at:
http://tejas.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~currsci/aug102000/scr974.pdf (You will need the Portable Document File PDF software from Adobe Acrobat, which is available as a Web browser plug-in at www.adobe.com.)
The report is interesting for the lack of detail of the methodology used to calculate Scoville Units through High Performance Liquid Chromatography. We asked Dr. Paul Bosland, the noted chile breeder at New Mexico State University to read the report in "Current Science" and to give us an opinion. He wrote:
"The two aspects that bother me are:
1) They never say they calibrated the HPLC. One should make up a known concentration of capsaicin solution and run it through the machine to calibrate the HPLC. How do we know the HPLC wasn't measuring all samples 100,000 SHU too much?
2) The preparation of the chiles is questionable. Did they weigh the chile sample before extracting? Were the seeds, pericarp, and placenta ground together?"
In light of Dr. Bosland’s skepticism, we repeat our challenge to the Indian scientists, Ritesh Mathur, R.S. Dangi. S.C. Dass, and R.C. Malhotra of the Defence Research Laboratory in Gwalior, India, to send us samples of the ‘Tezpur’ pods for testing by two U.S. labs: the one at New Mexico State University, and one at Analytical Food Laboratories. Frank Garcia of GNS Spices, developer of the ‘Red Savina’, has agreed to provide his samples for a "hottest chile test-off." Additionally, we will be emailing this challenge to the Indian scientists. Stay tuned to this site for future developments.
For a March 2003 update, click here
Ane here's our November 2006 Update