Carolina Reaper:
New King of Hot Peppers Crowned
To put it in perspective, a jalapeno pepper is between 5,000 and 8,000 Scoville Units.
Another way to look at it that the Carolina Reaper is nearly as strong as pepper spray used by police.
Ed Currie, who grows the Carolina Reapers, told the Associated Press that he’d been interested in peppers all his life and has been determined to grow the hottest pepper for over a decade.
"I haven't tried Ed's peppers. I am afraid to," Cliff Calloway, Winthrop University professor whose students tested Currie's peppers told the Associated Press. "I bite into a jalapeno - that's too hot for me."
Currie hopes to turn his skill for growing peppers into lucrative business in the growing hot pepper market. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans are eating 8 percent more hot peppers than they were five years ago.
Source: AP, Voice of America
