SYDNEY, (Reuters Life!) – Beware, Naga Viper. Your reign as the world’s hottest chili pepper may be coming to a close.
A group of Australians is seeking world record status for a new variety of chili, a bright red pepper so potent that processing it for eating requires gas masks and protective chemical warfare-like clothing.
The “Trinidad Scorpion Butch T” chili, a mere 2.5 cm (1 inch) long, comes it at a fiery 1.46 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU) per chili, according to testing by Melbourne firm EML Chemical == taking it well past the Naga Viper British Chili, the current Guinness record-holder at 1.38 million SHU.
By comparison, a jalapeno pepper contains anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000 SHU.
“I had hallucinations, I had to lie down, I couldn’t walk for 20 minutes, dizzy,” said Marcel de Wit, one of a group of men who developed and grew the incendiary vegetable, about eating a raw Trinidad Scorpion Butch T.
