Superhots · ranked
The hottest chillies in the world
Every variety in the index that reaches a million Scoville Heat Units or more, ranked by the top of its published range — 17 of them.
The numbers on this page are the same ones repeated across the internet. The difference is that we say where each came from, and mark the ones nobody has ever checked.
How this list is ranked
By the top of the heat range we hold for each variety — the highest figure a source has published for it. That is the number every “hottest peppers” list quotes, so ranking any other way would make this page incomparable with the rest of them.
It is also the least reliable number available. A record attempt tests the hottest pod somebody could grow, and heat varies wildly between fruit on a single plant. An average across a batch is a far better description of a variety, and where a certified average exists we say so in the entry. Read the range, not the ceiling: the bottom of it is closer to what you would get from a packet of seed and an ordinary summer.
Where a figure has a published source, the entry names it and links to it. Where it doesn't, the entry says that too.
Two companion pieces, if you want something other than a list: the chemistry and the history are in Understanding the Scoville Scale, and the single-answer version, with the record paperwork, is in What is the hottest chilli in the world?
- Held the record
- Guinness World Records has certified this variety as the world's hottest at some point.
- Never verified
- The headline number is a claim that no independent body has confirmed.
- Sources disagree
- Our sources give different figures for this variety, or contradict themselves.
- Reported figure
- The range comes from reference works and catalogues rather than a test we can point at.
- Independently tested
- A laboratory or the breeder has published a measurement, but it has never carried the title.
The ranking
C. chinense · United States
The reigning champion, and the second time Ed Currie has taken the title. Pepper X was recognised by Guinness World Records in 2023 on an average across a batch of pods rather than one freak fruit — which is the honest way to do it, and the reason its headline number sits below the peaks other varieties quote. The pods are small, bumpy and wrinkled, ripening green to a hard red, and the burn is reported to run for hours rather than minutes.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. chinense · United Kingdom
The most-quoted number on this page that nobody has ever confirmed. Dragon's Breath came out of a Nottingham Trent University collaboration trialling a plant feed — the chilli was a side effect, not the goal — and was grown in Wales by Mike Smith of St Asaph. The figure comes from a single unofficial test. Guinness has never recognised it, and no second lab has repeated it. We list it because the claim is famous, and mark it because the claim is unproven.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. chinense · United States
The variety that made superhots mainstream, and the one most people can name. It held the Guinness title for a decade from 2013, on a certified average measured at Winthrop University — a figure well below the maximum shown here, which comes from an individual pod that Guinness never confirmed. Worth knowing before you quote the big number at someone. Under the heat there is real flavour: fruity and faintly sweet, which is why it still ends up in sauces rather than just dares.
Heat figure from Wikipedia, PepperScale.
C. chinense · United Kingdom
A British superhot with an unusually commercial life — bred by Salvatore Genovese in Bedfordshire and sold through Tesco from 2015, which made it the first pepper most UK shoppers could buy at this heat without going to a specialist. Its parentage was never disclosed. The heat is famously delayed: a fruity, almost pleasant opening, then a burn that arrives late and keeps climbing. Our sources put its ceiling in different places, so treat the top of the range as the optimistic end.
Heat figure from PepperScale, Wikipedia.
C. chinense · Trinidad and Tobago
The first pepper measured above a million Scoville units by a university rather than a hobbyist — New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute did the work in 2012, and the average it published is the minimum shown here. Named for the village of Moruga on Trinidad's south coast. The heat is slow to arrive and then genuinely alarming, but the flavour underneath is sweet and fruity, which is the Caribbean chinense signature.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. chinense · United States
A modern cross of Bhut Jolokia, Trinidad Scorpion and Chocolate Habanero, and one of the most extreme peppers with no settled number at all — the reference we cite says plainly that a range has not been established. What it does have is a look: deep chocolate-brown pods with the wrinkled, blistered skin the Bhutlah line is known for. Growers rate it for flavour as well as heat, with the smoky depth the chocolate-podded chinense varieties tend to bring.
Heat figure from PepperScale.
C. chinense · Trinidad and Tobago
The chocolate-podded member of Trinidad's 7 Pot family, and the one experienced growers most often name as their favourite superhot to eat. Deep brown, heavily pimpled pods, with a smoky, earthy note the red 7 Pots don't have. "Douglah" is a Caribbean term for mixed African and Indian ancestry, applied to the pod for its colour. No certification exists — the range is compiled from catalogue listings.
Heat figure from PepperScale.
C. chinense · United Kingdom
Britain's most important contribution to the superhot world, and one of very few here with a figure published by the people who bred it. Joy and Michael Michaud of Sea Spring Seeds selected it in Dorset from a single Naga Morich plant over several generations and released it around 2005; it holds Plant Variety Protection. It is also the only entry on this list whose heat range we take from the breeder rather than a compilation.
Heat figure from Sea Spring Seeds.
C. chinense · Bangladesh
The Bangladeshi and northeast Indian parent of half this list — Dorset Naga came from it directly, and it stands behind the Naga Viper and the Nagabon too. Pods are smaller than the Ghost Pepper's with a more pronounced pimpled surface. Our two sources are a long way apart on how hot it actually gets, which is unusually common for varieties grown for generations in gardens rather than bred to a standard.
Heat figure from PepperScale, Wikipedia.
C. chinense · United States
A Trinidad Scorpion selection propagated by Butch Taylor in Mississippi, and the Guinness record holder from a March 2011 laboratory test. The stinger tail at the blossom end is the family signature. It is one of the cleaner data points on this page: a single dated measurement rather than a range assembled from other people's pages.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. hybrid · England
Gerald Fowler's three-way cross of Naga Morich, Bhut Jolokia and Trinidad Scorpion, bred in Cumbria and briefly the Guinness record holder in 2011. It is an unstable F1, which is the interesting part: pods from the same packet vary in shape, size and heat, and the plants do not breed true. Any number attached to it describes a particular fruit on a particular plant more than it describes the variety.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. chinense · Trinidad and Tobago
A stabilised 7 Pot selection named for the folded, brain-like surface of the ripe pods — the most extreme texture in a family that specialises in it. The heat is Caribbean chinense through and through: fruity and tropical for a beat, then the burn. The reference we cite gives two different ceilings on the same page, which is a fair illustration of how these numbers get compiled.
Heat figure from PepperScale.
C. chinense · United States
Troy Primeaux's cross of a 7 Pot with a Trinidad Scorpion, and the most theatrical pod on this page: the stinger inherited from the Scorpion parent grows longer and more pronounced than on the Scorpion itself, sometimes curling right back on the fruit. A collector's variety that earned its place on looks as much as heat.
Heat figure from PepperScale.
C. chinense · Trinidad and Tobago
Not one variety but the family the others come from — the Trinidadian original, named for the claim that a single pod will season seven pots of stew. Douglah, Primo, Brain Strain and Yellow are all selections from it. Treat this entry as the parent record and follow the links for the specific pods.
Heat figure from PepperScale.
C. chinense · Trinidad and Tobago
The yellow-ripening 7 Pot, and not simply a colour swap: growers consistently report a brighter, more citrus-forward flavour than the red pods carry, alongside the same heat. Colour variants in chinense often do shift flavour, which is why the index tracks them as varieties in their own right rather than folding them into the parent.
Heat figure from Bounty Hunter Seeds.
C. chinense · England
Bred by Nick Woods of Fire Foods in Grantham, and the shortest reign in this list — it held the world record for about two weeks in February 2011 before the Naga Viper took it. A useful reminder of how quickly the title changed hands in that period, and how little the record itself says about a chilli beyond one measurement on one day.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
C. chinense · India
The pepper that started the modern superhot era: Guinness certified it in 2007 as the first chilli confirmed above a million Scoville units, and every variety above it on this page exists because of the breeding race that followed. Grown for generations in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, and genetically an interspecies hybrid of chinense and frutescens. Still the one to start with if you have never grown a superhot — it is the mildest entry here, which tells you something about the company it keeps.
Heat figure from Wikipedia.
Who has held the record
The world record has changed hands six times since the mid-nineties, and three of those changes happened inside a single year. Two of the holders were bred in Britain.
- 1994–2006
A selected habanero, and the last record holder before the million-SHU era. Its headline figure was never officially verified; a later study measured it far lower.
- 2007
The first chilli certified above a million Scoville units, and the start of everything that follows.
- 2011
Infinity Chili · Naga Viper · Trinidad Scorpion Butch T
Three holders in a single year, two of them British. Sources disagree on the exact hand-over dates, because certification lagged the lab tests.
- 2012
The first title won on a university measurement — New Mexico State's Chile Pepper Institute.
- 2013–2023
A decade at the top, and the variety that took superhots out of the specialist nurseries and into supermarkets.
- 2023–
Ed Currie again, beating his own Reaper by roughly a million units on a batch average.
Why the numbers disagree
Scoville figures look like measurements and behave like folklore. Three things pull them apart. The first is peak against average: a certified record is an average across a sample, but the number that spreads is whichever single pod tested highest, and the gap between the two can be most of a million units.
The second is the plant itself. Capsaicin production responds to heat, drought stress and how long a pod is left on the bush, so the same seed grown in Trinidad and in a Yorkshire greenhouse will not give you the same result. An unstable hybrid like the Naga Viper takes this further — pods from one packet differ from each other.
The third is that most published ranges are copied. A catalogue quotes a reference site, which quoted a forum post, which quoted a grower. Nothing is dishonest about that, but it means a number can be repeated for fifteen years without anybody re-testing it. Where the trail runs out, this page says so rather than picking the most impressive figure and printing it.
Britain's place in this
For a country with no chilli-growing climate, Britain is startlingly well represented at the top of this list. The Dorset Naga was selected in Dorset from a single Naga Morich plant and is the only variety here whose heat figure comes from the people who bred it. The Naga Viper was crossed in Cumbria and held the world record in 2011; the Infinity Chili was bred in Grantham and held it for a fortnight the same year. The Komodo Dragon was raised in Bedfordshire and sold through Tesco. Dragon's Breath was grown in Wales.
The common thread is the greenhouse. British superhot breeding happens under cover, in controlled conditions, by people selecting obsessively over many seasons — which is a different discipline from growing them where they grow naturally, and it shows in how well documented the British varieties are.
Growing them in the UK
Almost everything on this list is Capsicum chinense, and chinense is the slow one. Seed can take three weeks to germinate and wants steady warmth to do it, so a heated propagator in January or February is the difference between ripe pods and a plant still carrying green fruit when the light goes in October.
Grow them on under cover. A greenhouse or polytunnel is ideal, a bright windowsill will do, and outdoors is a gamble in most of the country. Feed with something high in potassium once the first fruit sets, and be patient about ripening — superhots colour up late and the heat builds right at the end.
If it is your first one, start with the Ghost Pepper or the Dorset Naga. Both are widely available, both ripen more readily than the extreme end of this list, and both will comfortably out-heat anything you have eaten in a restaurant.
Just below the million
The next tier down — still superhot by any sane definition, and a great deal easier to grow, buy and cook with.
Common questions
- What is the hottest chilli in the world?
- Pepper X, recognised by Guinness World Records in 2023. It replaced the Carolina Reaper, which had held the title since 2013. Both were bred by Ed Currie in South Carolina. Dragon's Breath is often quoted as hotter, but its figure has never been independently verified or recognised by Guinness.
- What does SHU mean?
- Scoville Heat Units, a measure of capsaicin concentration. The scale began as a dilution taste test in 1912 and is now measured by high-performance liquid chromatography, with the chemical result converted back to Scoville units so the historic numbers still mean something.
- Why do different sites give different Scoville numbers for the same chilli?
- Because most published figures are peaks, not averages, and heat varies enormously between individual pods on the same plant depending on stress, sunlight and ripeness. A record attempt picks the hottest fruit it can find. That is why this page shows a range rather than one number, and says where each figure came from.
- Is a superhot chilli dangerous?
- Eating one is unpleasant rather than dangerous for most healthy adults, though there are documented cases of severe reactions. Capsaicin does not dissolve in water — reach for milk, yoghurt or something fatty. Wear gloves when preparing them, keep your hands away from your eyes, and do not treat a superhot as a dare for anyone with a heart condition or a child.
- Can you grow superhot chillies in the UK?
- Yes, but they need a long season. Chinense varieties germinate slowly and ripen late, so sow in January or February with a heated propagator and grow them on under cover — a greenhouse, polytunnel or a bright windowsill. Dorset Naga and Komodo Dragon were both bred in Britain and are the sensible place to start.
See the whole range on the Scoville scale, browse by species, put two varieties side by side, or search the full variety index.