AU: Chilli industry heats up

Things are hotting up at Phil Coram's Three Springs Farm at The Channon as a generation of black-seeded Peruvian chillies burst into fruit. Among all the thousands of chillies, only the rocoto manzano (red apple, Capsicum pubescens) has the unique black seeds and hairy leaves on a tree-like plant that can live for more than a decade.

"We sell them to a couple of organic stores in Sydney and Brisbane, and also to Fundy's in Lismore," Phil said. "They are an unusual chilli because of the size and shape, about like a small apple, and because they have those black seeds. Because of their origins in the high Andes, they can withstand the cold and can grow through the winter around here. The flavour is a very rich chilli flavour but it's not overwhelmingly hot once it cooks up; just a warming flavour. It's much hotter when it's raw, of course, but when you cook it the intensity comes out of the heat but the flavour remains."

According to Wikipedia, the rocoto manzano ranks a solid 100,000-350,000 on the Scoville Scale of chilli heat, putting it well below the 2,200,000 conflagrations of the chart-topping Carolina Reaper and the dreaded Indian Naga, and a bit below the imposing orange Habanero from Cuba. It was not hard to grow but was slightly thirstier than many other chillies.

Phil also has long Cayenne chillies in the ground and a few Thai Prik chillies, along with another American specimen, the almost mild Mexican Serrano. He also sold a few of the Caribbean Scotch Bonnet chillies last year and "might try to get into them a bit more".

"A lot of our chillies have fruit already but there's been a bit of blossom end rot because of the variations in the weather," he said. "A lot of these chillies will be retained for seed stock so we can develop the crop a little further."

Source: northernstar.com.au