Chilli experts find hottest pepper on the planet!

There are super-hot chilli varieties. And then there’s the sweat-inducing, tear-generating, mouth-on-fire Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. With a name like that, it’s not surprising that months of research by the experts at New Mexico’s State University’s Chilli Pepper Institute have identified the variety as the new hottest pepper on the planet.

The golf ball-sized pepper scored the highest among a handful of chilli breeds reputed to be among the hottest in the world. Its mean heat topped more than 1.2 million units on the Scoville heat scale, while fruits from some individual plants reached 2 million heat units.

“You take a bite. It doesn’t seem so bad, and then it builds and it builds and it builds. So it is quite nasty,” Paul Bosland, a renowned pepper expert and director of the chilli institute, said of the pepper’s heat.