The 10 Hottest Peppers In The World
Hot peppers are the hottest thing now, especially in the summer. This time of year it seems you can’t escape photos of people’s pepper plants being shared on social media. Although when the plant is full of colorful fruit, it does make a great subject for an edited Instagram post or shared to your story with a ‘Pepper Power’ emoji dancing next to it.
But which of these people are the most daring in their pepper endeavours? Who is out there trying to bring as much heat to their garden as possible?
You can find the hottest the hottest of the hot peppers on this heat scale that compares the Scoville Heat Units of over 100 peppers. I’ve highlighted the 10 hottest below.
- ) Carolina Reaper: 1.4–2.2 million SHU
The Carolina Reaper has been the official hottest pepper in the world since 2013 when it broke the Guinness World Record. It has broken it’s own record a few times with the most recent record of 2.2 million SHU in 2018.
2.) Pepper X: 3.18 million SHU
While the Pepper X has a higher SHU than 1st place, it hasn’t been verified by the Guinness World Records so it cannot claim the top spot.
3.) Dragon’s Breath: 2.48 million
This pepper has never been officially tested either so the SHU is only rumoured to be almost 2.5 million Scoville units. This pepper is not grown to be edible though and is instead being tested to be a skin anesthetic.
4.) Komodo Dragon: 1.4–2.2 million SHU
While it has a similar SHU to that of the Carolina Reaper, it tends to fall to the lower end of the scale leaving it in an unofficial 4th place.
5.) Trinidad Moruga Scorpion: 1.2–2 million SHU
The hottest of Trinidad’s hot peppers, where 4 of the 10 hottest peppers originated.
6.) Trinidad Scorpion Chocolate:1.2–2 million SHU
A different version of the pepper above, both tie for the hottest pepper from Trinidad.
7.) 7 Pot Douglah: 924K-1.854 million SHU
Another spicy pepper that hails from Trinidad.
8.) 7 Pot Brown: 800 K- 1.853 million SHU
And this is rounds out the 4 hot peppers to originate in Trinidad.
9.) Dorset Naga: 544K-1.6 million SHU
After the Komodo Dragon pepper, this is the hottest edible pepper to come from the United Kingdom.
10.) Naga Morich: 1–1.5 million SHU
Another hot one from the UK! 8 out of the 20 hottest peppers actually originate from the United Kingdom.
