A New Chili Pepper Tops The Scoville Scale

@kingston.hot.sauce

There’s a new scale-topping chili pepper in town and it was created by accident.

Mike Smith, a Welsh plant grower from Denbighshire, Wales, created what many people believe is the hottest chili pepper ever recorded. The new pepper, known as Dragon’s Breath, comes in at a whopping 2.48 million Scoville units and is so potent that it has to be concealed. No one has even dared to eat it out of terror it could actually kill you.

Up until recently, the world’s hottest chili has been the Carolina Reaper, which measures 2.2 million Scoville heat units. Consuming the Carolina Reaper would without a doubt easily put your mouth and body into shock, but you eat it if you dare.

Smith, who was trying to create an innovative entry for the Chelsea Flower Show a five-day-long garden show held in Chelsea, London — wasn’t expecting to create this world record-breaking pepper. The heat of the Dragon’s Breath is said to be beyond edible and so powerful and complex that it wouldn’t even hit you until a half hour after biting into it. Swallowing one of these chili peppers could put someone at risk of death from anaphylactic shock. Just to give you an idea, one drop of its capsaicin oil would be detectable in 2.48 million drops of water.

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The pepper was grown in collaboration with scientists from Nottingham Trent University who believe it can be used for medicinal purposes in third world countries that don’t have the money or access to certain drugs. Its oil can act as an anesthetic with skin-numbing capabilities and it’s ideal for those who are allergic to current painkillers on the market.

Dragon’s Breath will be displayed at the 2017 Chelsea Flower Show and entered in the running for the Plant of the Year award. There’s no sign of when it’ll become available to the public, but the real question is, who’s brave enough?