Narsai David: Hottest Chile Pepper

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- Chile peppers seem to be getting hotter and hotter and now there's a new pepper that some claim is the world's hottest yet.

The Moruga Scorpion possesses roughly 1.4 million Scoville heat units.

KCBS Food and Wine Editor Narsai David put the Scoville heat scale, used to measure peppers' hotness, in perspective and said for a time Thai peppers were thought to be pretty spicy with 75,000 heat units.

KCBS' Narsai David Reports:

By comparison, David put the now commonplace jalapeño, at a much lower 5,000 on the scale. The habenero on the other hand is 350,000 heat units.

In recent years another pepper called the Bhut Jolokia was discovered in India ranked at 1 million on the Scoville scale.

"Ever since then, it seems like every five minutes that a new one comes along," David said.

As for his pepper preference, David is sticking with the Aleppo because it's so mild that you can put plenty of it in the dish you're making and actually taste the dish before your mouth catches on fire.

Narsai David is the KCBS Food and Wine Editor. He has been a successful restaurateur, chef, TV host, and columnist in the Bay Area spanning four decades. You can hear him Saturdays at 10:53am, 12:53pm and 4:53pm, and at 2:53am Sunday on KCBS All News 740AM and 106.9FM

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