The hottest pepper has broken the record! Only 5 people in the world have eaten it

The world's hottest pepper has been renamed the Pepper X.

Pepper X, looking at the name, I thought it was developed by Musk (wrong)｜Jeffrey Collins/AP

The hottest pepper, one will make you feel painful for half a day

After testing, the average spiciness of Pepper X reached 2,693,000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units), which is much higher than the previous record holder, Dragon's Breath Pepper (2,480,000 SHU).

What does this spiciness of over 2 million mean?

The sweet peppers we usually eat are not spicy at all, with a spiciness of 0-5 SHU; the chili peppers that are so spicy that they make you cry have a spiciness of 30,000-48,000 SHU. The spiciness of pepper spray used by police ranges from 500,000 SHU to 2 million SHU, and the 2.2 million SHU spray can repel bears .

The pepper in his hand is not a chili pepper, but a weapon. In 1912, American scientist Wilbur L. Scoville first developed a unit for judging the spiciness of chili peppers, which is to grind the chili peppers and dilute them with sugar water until the spiciness is undetectable. Now, instruments are used for quantitative analysis to measure spiciness, but in order to commemorate him, this unit system has been retained. | Jeffrey Collins/AP

The breeder of this new hottest pepper is Ed Currie, the pepper breeder who previously bred the famous super-spicy variety "Carolina Reaper".

In the Pepper X launch video, Ed Currie and three others "raised their glasses" to share two of the hottest peppers.

Ed Currie (third from the left in the picture above) took almost an entire Pepper X｜First We Feast/Youtube

After taking a bite, someone cried because of the spiciness while describing the pepper as tasting like oak and pencils . It's very professional to analyze it even though it's so spicy...

Ed Currie said in an interview that after eating a whole pepper, he experienced three and a half hours of burning in his stomach, followed by severe cramping pain that left him lying on the ground groaning in pain for about an hour .

The guest who was in agony after eating the chili pepper (left) and Ed Currie who looked calm｜First We Feast/Youtube

Breeding new pepper varieties requires a lot of patience. It takes about 10 generations for hybrids to stabilize, with predictable shapes and consistent fruit. Currie does more than a hundred cross-breedings each year, hoping to develop one or two stable varieties over a 10-year period.

It was a long process, but he finally broke the world record with his new pepper.

Pepper X in a suitcase | First We Feast/Youtube

The "world 's hottest " pepper

The previous hottest pepper was the Dragon's Breath , which was developed by researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK and farmer Mike Smith (are you bored?).

It is said that the fearless Mike even tasted the "dragon's breath", licked it with the tip of his tongue, and spat it out ten seconds later . The first reaction to eating this pepper is that your mouth is numb. People's self-protection function is smart. As soon as your mouth touches this pepper, the receptors in your mouth will immediately warn your brain: This is not edible! Don't put everything you see in your mouth, you foodie!

Let this "dragon" breathe on you, you will die in a minute｜Monster Hunter Fan Rus / Youtube

Next, blisters will begin to form on the parts of your body that have come into contact with the dragon's breath, especially where the concentration of capsaicin is high. If you swallow it, your throat will also blister. This doesn't help either, as the capsaicin will penetrate the blisters and continue to stimulate the nerve endings below the receptors in your mouth, causing pain that will last for at least 20 minutes .

Carolina Reaper

The Carolina Reaper was the hottest pepper in the world for a long time before the Dragon's Breath came along. Well, this one was also bred by Ed Currie, and he can be said to have returned to the throne.

Ed Currie employees wearing Carolina Reaper apparel. © Jeffrey Collins/AP

The spiciness of the "Carolina Reaper Pepper" ranges from 1.5 million to 2.2 million SHU. Even the most spicy people will become slurred and their whole body numb after eating it .

In 2016, two girls filmed themselves trying the Carolina Reaper pepper. The video recorded the process of two people from smiling, excited, screaming, and finally crying and shaking in pain. One of them even needed oxygen｜Youtube

The mother of the hottest pepper is actually Chinese pepper!

There are more than 20 species of pepper plants in the world. They all have the same characteristic of having star-shaped flowers and equally spicy fruits. The classification within the genus Capsicum has always been a confusing account. Linnaeus originally divided peppers into two species, annual peppers and bush peppers .

Annual pepper (Capsicum annuum)

This is the pepper with the largest planting area, the most varieties and the largest output in the world. This pepper is in a herbaceous state throughout its life, with flowers growing alone on the nodes one by one, and the fruits usually grow droopingly.

Their fruits are varied. Horn-shaped green peppers, finger-shaped pointed peppers, bell-shaped bell peppers, colorful peppers, and Sichuan's seven-star peppers are all members of the annual pepper family.

One-year-old pepper fruit droops｜powo.science.kew.org

Bush pepper (C. frutescens)

It is named because it can be perennial and its stems become lignified. The biggest difference from annual peppers is that the shrub peppers will have several flowers on the nodes, and the fruits will grow upright . China's famous super hot peppers all come from shrub peppers, such as the familiar millet pepper . In addition, there is a kind of devil hot pepper in Yunnan, which also comes from this species.

Bush-like peppers stand upright | Wikipedia

Chinese pepper (C. chinense)

The several current and former world's hottest peppers mentioned above are all descendants of Chinese peppers .

This pepper is also called yellow bell pepper. But this pepper is neither from China nor a genuine bell pepper . The so-called bell pepper refers to the familiar sweet pepper and bell pepper in taxonomy. As for the name of Chinese pepper, it is only because in 1776, German botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin often saw chefs in Chinese restaurants using a large number of this pepper, so he gave it this name. But the hometown of this pepper is also in the tropical region of America.

Chinese peppers are not native to China｜Wikimedia Commons

When eating chili peppers, which part is the spiciest?

Different peppers have different spiciness, and different parts of the same pepper also have different spiciness. This is because capsaicin is secreted by the placenta of the pepper (the part full of pepper seeds). Capsaicin is transmitted to the entire pepper through the vascular bundle between the placenta and the peel. Therefore, the hottest part of the pepper is the placenta and those white veins .

The placenta is the hottest｜natinspicygarden.com

The heat of a pepper is determined primarily by the genetics of each variety, and peppers that grow in drier habitats tend to be milder, while those that grow in wetter areas tend to be more fiery .

The spicy substance in peppers is capsaicin. For peppers, this substance can prevent mammals from eating them and defend against fungal infections . Peppers living in humid places often keep their stomata open, which greatly increases the chance of fungal infection, so more capsaicin is prepared.

In addition to genetic factors, light and soil nutrients can also affect and change the spiciness of peppers. The first is light. Proper shading from the sun can promote the accumulation of capsaicin . This is because the raw materials of capsaicin are also the raw materials of plant products such as flavonoids and lignin. Light can promote the production of flavonoids, so when the raw materials are limited, the "yield" of capsaicin is reduced. Therefore, peppers grown in pots at home may be hotter than peppers grown in the fields .

If the light intensity is weak, the peppers grown may be spicier. Peppers grown in flower pots at home may be spicier｜gardenerspath.com

Although eating chili peppers feels like a masochistic experience, it still feels good in the end. This may be the charm of capsaicin. Currie, the breeder of the hottest chili pepper, also said that he enjoys when diners cry when eating chili peppers. Maybe he himself has a bit of a sadistic tendency.

Author: Durian, Shi Jun, Window Knocking Rain

Editor: Calendar Girl, Little Towel

Title image source: Jeffrey Collins/AP