The current world record holder for the hottest pepper is the Carolina Reaper, which was developed in South Carolina, USA. The Carolina Reaper has an average Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) rating of 1.6 million, but some individual peppers have been measured at over 2 million SHU.
To put this in perspective, the jalapeño pepper, which is considered moderately spicy, typically has a SHU rating of 2,500 to 8,000. So the Carolina Reaper is many times hotter than a jalapeño!
The Carolina Reaper was created by a grower named Ed Currie, who used selective breeding to create a pepper with a high concentration of capsaicin, the compound responsible for the pepper’s heat. It is grown primarily in the United States, but it has also been cultivated in other countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
