Ghost pepper
chili pepper cultivar cultivated in Northeast India
The ghost pepper, also known as bhut jolokia (lit. 'Bhutanese pepper' or 'ghost pepper' in Assamese) or naga jolokia, is a superhot chili pepper cultivated in Northeast India.
In 2007, Guinness World Records certified that the ghost pepper was the world's hottest chili pepper, 170 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. The ghost chili is rated at more than one million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs) and far surpasses the amount of a habanero. However, the ghost chili has since been superseded by the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper in 2011, the Carolina Reaper in 2013 and Pepper X in 2023.
Ghost pepper belongs to the species Capsicum chinense, but RAPD analysis indicates the presence of some genetic material from Capsicum frutescens from an introgression event, however, there is no indication that this is related to its exceptional heat.
Etymology and regional names
The name bhut jolokia means 'Bhutanese pepper' in Assamese; the first element bhut /bʱʊt/, meaning 'Bhutanese', was mistakenly confused for a near-homonym bhut /bʱut/, meaning 'ghost'.
In Assam, the pepper is also known as bih zôlôkia meaning 'poison chili', from Assamese bih meaning 'poison' and zôlôkia meaning 'chili pepper', denoting the plant's heat. Similarly, in Nagaland, one of the regions of cultivation, the chili is called Raja mirja meaning King chili ('Naga king chili'; also romanized nôga zôlôkia) and bhut jolokia (also romanized bhût zôlôkiya). This name is especially common in other regions where it is grown, such as Assam and Manipur. It has also been called the Tezpur chili after the Assamese city of Tezpur.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ghost pepper” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.