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Found--The Reputed Hottest Chile in the World!
By Dave DeWitt
Since September, 2000, we have been reporting on a claim by Indian scientists that their variety of chile, ‘Naga Jolokia’ is the hottest chile pepper in the world, measuring an astonishing 855,000 Scoville Heat Units (see Part 1 and Part 2.) The variety was said to be Capsicum frutescens, or a close relative of the Tabasco chile. But there were several problems with the story. First, no frutescens has ever been measured that is nearly that hot, and this measurement of 855,000 SHU is nearly 200,000 SHU hotter than ‘Red Savina’, the previous record holder. Second, in the journal article published by the Indians, there were no details about how the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) test was conducted and whether or not the machine was calibrated. Third, the Indian scientists never responded to mail, email, faxes, or phone calls made to them by American scientists such as Dr. Paul Bosland of New Mexico State University. And fourth, since scientists in other countries did not have samples, there was no way to reproduce the results of the Indian testing.
Because of these problems, Dr. Bosland and I dismissed and debunked the Indian claims and branded as a hoax the claim that the ‘Naga Jolokia’ is the hottest chile pepper in the world. But maybe we were wrong.
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For a special issue on international chile peppers that I contributed to, the Japanese magazine, Paper Sky, sent a reporter all the way to Tezpur, India, to check out the claim about the ‘Naga Jolokia’. The reporter, Graham Simmons, soon discovered that the chile was named after the ferocious Naga warriors, who once inhabited Nagaland in Assam, one of India’s most fertile regions. Accompanying the article was a photo of a dried out plant that still had some orange-red pods on it. The pods were clearly Capsicum chinense, the species containing the habaneros. So at least the species mystery was solved–but what about that HPLC test? Unfortunately, Simmons did not speak directly to the Indian scientists, and even if he did, it would be too much to hope that he quizzed them about their testing methodology.
So, given that the ‘Naga Jolokia’ is a habanero relative, what are we left with? Is it possible that it is the hottest chile in the world? Possible, but highly unlikely. I think we have a faulty test and the only way to find out is to get samples and have them tested by a number of different laboratories. So far, NMSU and Analytical Food Laboratories have volunteered to do the HPLC tests. It should be pointed out that the 577,000 SHU rating of the ‘Red Savina’ has never been duplicated, and tests by NMSU revealed that the hottest chile they tested was ‘Chocolate Habanero’, with ‘Red Savina’ in third place (see Heat Levels Reported.) So be skeptical.
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Is This Caribbean Chile the Real ‘Naga Jolokia’? The photograph of ‘Naga Jolokia’ in Paper Sky was small and out of focus, but after magnifying it and comparing it to all the chinense varieties in my photo files, I came up with its closest relative, the ‘Rica Red’ variety of the Caribbean Red pod type. This extremely hot variety was developed in Costa Rica in the early 1990s, and I visited their growing operation in the aptly-named town of Los Chiles. It is highly likely that ‘Rica Red’ seeds, or those of other Caribbean Red varieties, were transferred from the Caribbean to India. Note that another similar variety, ‘Congo Pepper’, is from Trinidad, where forty percent of the population has an Indian heritage. |
How to Rig an HPLC Test
You’d think that a test is just a test, right? No, wrong. A test is only as good as its sample, its calibration, its operator, and its interpreter. There are no legal regulations or policies on the testing of chile peppers for pungency, and no restraints imposed upon claims made as a result of the test. So this means that if you provide a sample to a laboratory and they provide a superhot result, you can make any claims you want, much like the Indians did. There is no requirement for validation through another test. Not that I would ever do such a thing, but if I were going to prove that I grew the hottest chile in the world, here’s how I would proceed.
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Find a laboratory that will test my sample with no questions asked about its origin.
Provide a carefully prepared sample. Instead of drying the chiles and presenting the entire pod, I would find the hottest habaneros imaginable and carefully remove the placental tissue, where the capsaicin glands are located, and then with tweezers pull off all the seeds and discard them. The idea is to test just the hottest part of the pod.
If the sample still doesn’t test hot enough for me, I would submit another sample, but this one treated with 1 million or more Scoville Heat Unit oleoresin capsicum, the superhot extract. This would skew the results even higher.
Then I would call a press conference and invite the gullible Associated Press, who spread the Indian story around the world, and tell them that I grew the hottest chile in the world, and provide them with the test results from the laboratory.
See how easy it is to manufacture the "proof?"
Update 12/2004: A comment from a SuperSite reader in Japan
I just found your website today while I was researching for hot chile recipes, and I noticed your series of articles regarding the Indian Tezpur pepper and the claim that it is the hottest in the world.
Here in Japan, we have a lot of curry houses, and they make some extremely spicy dishes, many with Indian Tezpur. Some of these restaurants even have jars of whole Indian Tezpurs sitting on shelves. They look exactly like that one Caribbean Habanero, by the way, just a little bigger.
One particular curry house in Aomori has a spice level called "Special 10," in which the heat is derived exclusively from Indian Tezpurs, whereas most of the curry dishes use a mish-m a sh of Thai peppers, Sichuan Kuangzi, and Tezpurs. From my own personal experience, having enjoyed this curry several times on beef, shrimp, and tofu, I would have to say there's no way that the Indian Tezpur is even close to as hot as the Red Savina Habanero. I've had a Bloody Mary where the bartender threw in 1/8 of a teaspoon of ground R.S.H. for me, and I was a sweaty mess. The curry house uses a whole teaspoon of ground Indian Tezpur to make about 8 ounces of sauce for their special curry dish, and it's only a little bit hotter than that Bloody Mary was. If a whole teaspoon of R.S.H. were used for that dish, I guarantee it would be much, much hotter (and would probably taste better!).
I'm no scientist, but judging purely by feel, my best guest would put the Indian Tezpur around 240,000-250,000 SHU, tops.
I guess the debate will never really be settled until the Indian farmers send some over to an American lab, but this chilehead votes for the Red Savina.
Best regards,
Kyle Provost
Here's our extensive November 2006 Update
Japanese
magazine Paper Sky
