The dried Wild Desert Tepin- actual size!
Whole pods
Dried flakesDremann's Hotness Scale for the tiny Wild Desert Tepin=20,000-64,000
Grow the Tepin,the Ghost pepper and the Trinidad Scorpion together
in your garden and have a contest!
Click here for SUE DREMANN's favorite TEPIN PEPPER RECIPES
Click here for PEPPER GROWING TIPS
Method
for testing pepper heat at home
TEPIN (Capsicum annuum v. aviculare), the
tiny round fruit, only 1/4 inch across, is only harvested from
wild plants growing in the desert mountains of Northern Mexico, when good rains fall in the summer in the deserts
where they live, the Tepin pods can be much hotter than any Habaneros,
Scotch Bonnets, or the Red Savina® pepper. Also called the
Chiltepin and is one of the many types of chilies called
Bird peppers.
The first year, plants require 120 days for green fruit and 200 days from the setting out of plants to mature red ripe fruit, so they are best grown in containers year-round and brought indoors overwinter in areas that have frost. The second year, when plants are put outdoors the next spring, they start flowering quickly, and start producing fruit from July to October.
Plants can live for 35-50 years if protected from frost in winter, if the minimum winter temperature is kept above 60 degrees F.
In Florida, Hawaii, southern Texas, southern NM and southern Arizona, and coastal California, the plants will grow as perennial bushes outside year-round, if protected with a cardboard box over them, when night temperatures ever dip below 40.
All the peppers in the world are perennials and can live for years to decades , when protected from cold, and only die when hit by frost.
Dried flakesSOME OF OUR OTHER EXTRA-HOT PEPPERS:
Hot pepper seed germination
tips: Always start seeds
in a potting soil that is made out of forest products, and do
not use peat , peat pots or peat pellets. There is more information,
plus photos of the results of tests at www.ecoseeds.com/pepper.growing.tips.html.
---BHUT JOLOKIA or Ghost Pepper, Craig's rough strain™ (Pronounced BOOT Joe-LOH-key-ah) (Capsicum chinense) Also called the Naga Jolokia. Has been listed as the hottest pepper in the Guinness Book of World's Records. One of the largest fruit of the habanero or Scotch Bonnet group, and a unique shape for a habanero-type, from India but originated somewhere in the Americas, probably South America or the Caribbean.
PLEASE NOTE: Seeds absolutely need a minimum of 15-20 days of 80-85 degree F. daytime soil temperature to germinate. Soil temps. are usually different than air temps., so you absolutely must have a soil thermometer in the soil, to check that you are actually getting that 80-85 degree F. daytime soil temperature. A $12 Taylor indoor-outdoor thermometer with a wire, and putting the outdoor sensor in the soil, will give you the soil. temp. within 0.1 degree.
Planting California poppies or Meadowfoam flowers around or near by the Bhut Jolokia plants in the garden, helps draw in native pollinators, and helps stop blossom drop and can help improve fruit set.
Calcium provided by bone meal is absolutely essential for growing the Bhut Jolokias and any other Habaneros or Scotch Bonnets. A hand full needs to be added to the hole where each seedling is planting out into the garden, and then once a month sprinkled around the base of each plant during the growing season, and watered in until you cannot see the bone meal on the surface.
Adding liquid fish fertilizer once a month is critical, at the rate of one cup mixed into a gallon watering can, and applying to the roots of each plant, which help you achieve those Christmas-tree sized, six foot tall plants with 1,000 fruit per plant.
Bhut Jolokia is very hot for a large-fruited pepper, with a very thin skin, which makes it easy to dry.
However, the Bhut Jolokia is still extremely variable in its selection for uniformity, and the material from India produces plants that vary as to plant size, as to fruit size, varies in fruit production, and has a very wide range of heat levels per plant.
There are several strains of seed of the Bhut Jolokia from many other sources, with a very wide range in their heat levels, and we measured the fresh fruit from 7,143 to 25,000 and the heat level for the dried fruit can be as high as HS: 60,000.
Our seed is selected
from the biggest fruit from the most
productive plants, and germinates faster and better than other
strains. Germination 11/2011 79%. PACKET (35 seeds) $10
BHUT PLUS 20 PEPPER SEED COLLECTION. One Bhut Jolokia seed packet, plus twenty other different pepper varieties in their own individual seed packets, usually 100 seeds per packet from 2011, only $40 to customers in the USA, Mexico or Canada. Only a limited amount of these collections available.
---BHUT JOLOKIA or Ghost Pepper, Craig's smooth strain™. The Bhut Jolokia also produces a smooth fruit type, that you can see in the pictures below, or at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhut_Jolokia. The plants has more sturdy stems, and can yield as much as three times as much as the wrinkled fruit strain does.
A Kentucky greenhouse hydroponic pepper-growing family sent us pictures of their 2010 fresh Bhut smooth fruit harvests: When planted in 5 gallon pine bark bags with calcium nitrate added to the nutrient solution, plants grew by the end of the year to 3 feet across and 6 feet tall, producing 1,000 peppers on each plant. The weight of the fruit was threatening to break off branches. Photos copyright © 2010 by Gerald Locker, used with permission.
Those peppers sold for retail for
$3 each and wholesale for 50 cents each,
making the Bhut one of the most valuable legal agricultural
products you can grow, and at 100 fruit per pound, the value
was from $50-300 per pound. Germination 11/2011 60%. (HS: up
to 60,000 d) PACKET (35 seeds) $10
Dried pod of Craig's Bhut Jolokia
Habanero Cross.
---BHUT JOLOKIA or Ghost Pepper Craig's Habanero Cross. The red rough Bhut Jolokia crossed with habanero and selected for more consistent heat levels, producing a heat range for the dried fruit HS up to 60,000. Fruit oval to long 0.5 to one inch across, and ranges from 1.5-3 inches long. PACKET (35 seeds) $10
Chocolate Habanero
---Chocolate Habanero or Chocolate Congo. (C. chinense) One of hottest of the large-fruited habanero types, and the favorite pepper in the Caribbean to make barbecue sauces and marinades, with a unique rich flavor unduplicated by any other pepper. Can be dried and smoked like the Chipotle, to produce an exquisite flavored sauce. Beautiful chocolate brown, 2 inches long. Low germination, only 35% for current packets, tested 11-2011. (HS: 6,000 f). PKT. (100 seeds) $2.50
Habanero Craig's Orange 3X Hot , loaded with hot, hot, hot fruit.
---Habanero Craig's Orange Triple Hot™. (C. chinense) Square shaped fruit 2" long, turning orange with an unusual apricot flavor and scent when ripe. Plants 3 feet tall and 4 feet across, very prolific about 50-100 fruit per plant. Loved for its unique fruity flavor and juicy, crunchy fruit. This selection is three times as hot as the regular orange Habanero variety that you buy in the grocery stores. (HS: 15,384 f) PKT. (100 seeds) $5
---Habanero Mustard (C. chinense) Plants 4 feet tall and 3 feet across. Extremely hot fruit 1.5-2 inches long and 1 inch across, very wrinkled, orange when ripe. One of the world's hottest peppers. People are surprised when the grow and try this pepper for the first time. (HS: 23,076 f) PKT. (100 seeds) $5
---Habanero Gold Bullet® -- 2x hotter than the Bhut Jolokia-- available summer 2012.
The amazing abundance
of the White Bullet® Habanero,
on a single plant!
---Habanero White Bullet ® (C. chinense) The earliest maturing and most productive habanero, with white fruit turning light golden, 1/2" wide and 1" long. "Dare to bite the bullet"™ -- the fruits are 3x hotter than most other habaneros, and 2x as hot as the chocolate! If you can successfully grow the orange habanero or the red scotch bonnets in your garden, then wait until you see the staggering yields of the White Bullet®---a single plant can produce over 1,000 fruit weighing a total of five pounds! (HS: 16,000 d). Federally registered trademark, not shipped outside of the USA. PKT. (100 seeds) $5
--Naga Morich (C. chinense) Another pepper from India with a wide range in its heat level, from HS: 8,000-14,285 for the fresh fruit, and up to 25,000 when dried. Our strain is the hottest one, and the heat is so concentrated, that just cutting this pepper open when fresh can be dangerous if you are not wearing rubber gloves and a mask. The extreme heat level of our strain also makes it dangerous, for you or anyone else to eat it raw, and we suggest making it into a sauce or salsa to make it safe to use without hurting yourself or others. (HS: 14,285 f, 25,000 d) PKT. (35 seeds) $10.
Pequin dried flakes, one of the world's hottest peppers.
---Pequin or Prin-key-new (C.
frutescens) One of the top-10 hottest peppers, originally from
the Americas and now grown in Thailand where it is known as the
Prin-key-new. This tiny pepper, only 1/4 inch long, really
packs a punch, and the dried flakes are usually smoked like Chipotle,
so add a very distinctive flavor to dishes. (HS: 20,000). PKT.
(100 seeds) $5
---Sadabahar (C. annuum) Probably the hottest pepper of the fast-maturing annuum group, from India, with fruit 0.3" wide and 2.5-3 inches long. Grow a pepper that will knock your socks off, in half the time that it takes to grow the Bhut, or any habaneros or Scotch bonnets. (HS: 60,000 dried). PKT. (100 seeds) $5
--Scotch Bonnet Fatali, life size (C. chinense)
Plants with big leaves, 2.5 feet tall and 3 feet across, large
peppers 3 inches long and 1 inch across, turns yellow to orange
when ripe, extremely hot fruit, among the world's hottest. Fruit
has the ability to keep fresh for several weeks. Produces well
in northern climates, and still keeps its heat. (HS: 17,582 f).
PKT (100 seeds) $5
--Scotch Bonnet Nelson's
Jamaican Yellow™- (C.
chinense) Good size and the real-McCoy for the original Jamaican
strain that has been lost by the Jamaican island growers, but
still has a lot of variation in shapes and heat levels. Image
above shows the ideal shape. Found in the market in Maryland by
a commercial grower named Nelson. (Up to HS 35,000 f) -Packet
(35 seeds) $5
--Trinidad Scorpion
Red, Craig's strain™. (C. chinense). Unique pepper pods shape, with
a scorpion-tail at the end. This pepper has the potential, once
the heat level of this strain is stabilized, to be a permanent
Guinness World Record holder.
This pepper, when fresh or dried, is so hot that it is extremely dangerous, and we recommend that you wear chemical resistant gloves (latex gloves are not robust enough), safety goggles, clothing that you can remove and wash immediately after working with the peppers, and a fume mask (like a 3M model 6247 from the Ace Hardware store) to protect yourself when handling either the fresh or dried fruit, and only work with this pepper outside.
Best to make the pepper into a sauce, rather than use as dried flakes or as a powder, or even as a dried whole pepper, because the liquid of the sauce will help keep the pepper from atomizing in the air.
DO NOT make this dried pepper into a powder, and DO NOT put this pepper into hot oil, to make a hot oil sauce. DO NOT USE A KNIFE when cutting the fresh peppers--instead use an Exacto-blade or a single-edged razor blade so you atomize the least amount of pepper into the air.
Safer to try the fresh or dried Trinidad scorpion pepper, Louisiana-style, which is to take a hot sauce bottle with a shaker top, and put the pepper whole or sliced in the bottle with a liquid, like vinegar, lime juice, or vodka, and allow the liquid to get infused with the pepper for a week or two. Then shake out the liquid to use, and replace the liquid as it is used up, and keep reusing the same peppers over and over again that way.
Please, never offer this pepper to someone who is not aware of its extreme heat level, because the results could be life threatening. People have asked me if this warning is just advertising hype, but I am very serious about the dangers of this pepper, so be very, very carefu, and use with caution. The purchase of this seeds means that the buyer is aware of these risks, and takes full responsibility.
Like the Ghost peppers, there is a layer of almost pure capscaisin on the inner walls of this pepper. Use a toothpick and scrape the inside of this pepper and get a little bit at the end of the tootpick, and see if that doesn't knock your socks off. Up to HS: 100,000 dried. Sold out until November 2012.
TRINIDAD SCORPION DRIED
FLAKES. The same warning about the heat level for the
seeds, goes with these flakes. Please do not use them in their
dried form or make them into a powder, but soak them in liquid
like vinegar, lime juice or vodka, and pour off the liquid that
gets infused by the peppers after a few days, then replace liquid
as it is used up, so you could use the same peppers over a long
period of time. One grams $10 including postage to USA, Mexico
or Canada.
--Zimbabwe Bird fruit, life size (C.
annuum) Ornamental round-shaped plant only 8-12" tall
and 1-2 feet across. Plants very prolific, looking a like a lawn
of fruit. Pods are upright, triangular, 3/4" long and 1/4"
across. One of the world's hottest peppers, a bird pepper from
Africa, and very rare. (HS: 19,500 f) PKT. (100 seeds) $5.
Please note that "Bhut Jolokia Craig's strain", "Habanero
Orange Craig's Triple-Hot", "Hawaiian Volcano",
"Klinger's Florida Grove", "Scotch Bonnet Nelson's
strain", "Trinidad Scorpion Craig's strain" and
"Bullet" are exclusive trademarks of the Redwood City
Seed Company, and the "Bullet" trademark is Federally
registered. Photos and text Copyright © 2002-2010 by
Craig and Sue Dremann, all right reserved.
PLEASE NOTE:
Downloading any of these images and using them to
sell seeds, plants or pepper products, without my written permission
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or using them in a printed catalog, agree to pay on demand,
liquidated damages of $100 per day per image. And when copying and reposting any text from
this web page without written permission for any purpose including
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the liquidated damages that you agree to pay on demand, is
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Updated May 3, 2012