How hot is Pepper X, the new hottest chilli pepper in the world? ‘I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours,’ says creator
- Pepper X, a chilli created and grown by South Carolina pepper guru Ed Currie, is the new Guinness World Record holder for the hottest pepper
- At 2.69 million on the Scoville scale, Pepper X is hotter than police pepper spray, and even Currie, who has a very high tolerance, felt the pain for hours
Ed Currie, the hot pepper expert who created the infamous Carolina Reaper, has broken his own world record.
Currie, from the US state of South Carolina, said when he first tried Pepper X, it did more than warm his heart.
“I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came,” said Currie, one of only five people so far to eat an entire Pepper X. “Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for around an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.”
Heat in peppers is measured in Scoville heat units. It refers to how many times an amount of the pepper needs to be diluted to negate the feeling of heat. It is an average score. Zero units means no heat, and a jalapeño registers about 5,000 units. A habanero, the record-holder about 25 years ago, scores 100,000 to 300,000.
