Extremely spicy foods are sometimes considered a test of courage. But if you want to try Pepper X, you have to be extremely hardened. The variety with this name is now officially the hottest chili in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
It was bred by Ed Currie, founder and boss of the US company PuckerButt Pepper, which specializes in spicy foods and sauces. On the Scoville scale, which measures the spiciness of chili peppers, Pepper For comparison: Tabasco sauce is between 2500 and 5000 Scoville degrees, jalapeños between 2500 and 8000. Even pepper spray is only at most 300,000 Scoville degrees. The key to the spiciness is the alkaloid capsaicin contained in the fruit.
Currie worked on the new chili pepper for ten years and crossed some of his hottest varieties with each other. The breeder has outdone himself: the hottest chili in the world to date, Carolina Reaper, also came from his production. It scored 1.64 million on the Scoville scale.
This far exceeds Pepper X – making it not for the faint of heart. So far only five people in the world have dared to eat the record chili pepper. It shouldn’t be much fun if you believe Ed Currie’s description: “I felt the heat for three and a half hours. Then I had cramps,” he told the AP news agency. “The cramps were terrible. I lay flat on a marble slab in the rain for about an hour, moaning in pain.”
The breeder strongly warns inexperienced eaters not to eat it. He doesn’t believe in the sharpness challenges that keep doing the rounds on TikTok or other social media platforms. Instead, he warns against reaching for a Carolina Reaper or Pepper X chili pepper too early and advises building up a heat tolerance first.
Sources: Guinness World Records / AP
Watch the video: What you won’t do for clicks: A 9-year-old YouTuber from Scotland eats the hottest chili in the world for an online hit. And suffers torment. His grandfather completely underestimates the danger of the immense sharpness.
