Pepper X has officially been named the world’s hottest chilli.
Guinness World Records announced it had replaced the Carolina Reaper.
Both varieties were created by Ed Currie – which means he’s broken his own record.
Ed Currie with his Guinness World Records certificate. Pic: AP
Pepper X has been a decade-long obsession. It took him 10 years to get Pepper X from the first crossbreed experiment to the record.
This includes five years of testing to prove it was a distinct plant with a different fruit – and documenting its average heat.
Pepper X measures 2.69 million Scoville heat units. Pic: AP
It is a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and what Mr Currie mysteriously classifies as a “pepper that a friend of mine sent me from Michigan that was brutally hot”.
“I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps came,” said Mr Currie, one of only five people so far to eat an entire Pepper X.
“Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.”
Pepper X has been in the works since Mr Currie last set the hottest chilli record in 2013 with the Carolina
