Dry River Chillies

Naga Chillies

This year we are growing a brilliant selection of Naga Plants and we will have fresh Nagas to buy online and at our markets

The Naga is a Capsicum chinense species and goes buy many various guises such as Naga Morich (snake or serpent chilli), Bih Jolokia , Bhut Jolokia, Borbih Jolokia, Nagahari, Dorset Naga, Naga jolokia, Naga Morich, Naga Moresh and Raja Mirchi

This Chilli has been getting a lot of press lately due to it's status as the new Guinness book of records as the hottest chilli in the world

Artical from timesonline.co.uk

April 01, 2006

The chilli so hot you need gloves

By Simon de Bruxelles

THE world’s hottest chilli pepper does not come from a tropical hot spot where the locals are impervious to its fiery heat but a smallholding in deepest Dorset.

Some chillis are fierce enough to make your eyes water. Anyone foolhardy enough to eat a whole Dorset Naga would almost certainly require hospital treatment.

The pepper, almost twice as hot as the previous record- holder, was grown by Joy and Michael Michaud in a poly- tunnel at their market garden. The couple run a business called Peppers by Post and spent four years developing the Dorset Naga.

They knew the 2cm-long specimens were hot because they had to wear gloves and remove the seeds outdoors when preparing them for drying, but had no idea they had grown a record-breaker.

Some customers complained the peppers were so fiery that even half a small one would make a curry too hot to eat. Others loved them and the Michauds sold a quarter of a million Dorset Nagas last year. At the end of last season Mrs Michaud sent a sample to a laboratory in America out of curiosity. The owner had never tested anything like it.

According to Mrs Michaud, the hottest habañero peppers popular in chilli-eating competitions in the US generally measure about 100,000 units on the standard Scoville scale, named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville, who developed it in 1912. At first the scale was a subjective taste test but it later developed into the measure of capsaicinoids present. The hottest chilli pepper in The Guinness Book of Records is a Red Savina habañero with a rating of 570,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

Mrs Michaud was stunned when the Dorset Naga gave a reading of nearly 900,000SHU. A fresh sample was sent to a lab in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association and recorded a mouth-numbing 923,000SHUs.

Mrs Michaud said: “The man in the first lab was so excited — he’d never had one even half as hot as that. The second lab took a long time because they were checking it carefully as it was so outrageously high.”

The Dorset Naga was grown from a plant that originated in Bangladesh. The Michauds bought their original plant in an oriental store in Bournemouth. Mrs Michaud said: “We weren’t even selecting the peppers for hotness but for shape and flavour. There is an element of machismo in peppers that we aren’t really interested in. When the results of the heat tests came back I was gobsmacked.”

The couple are now seeking Plant Variety Protection from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which will mean that no one else can sell the seeds.

Mrs Michaud, 48, has run the company with her husband at West Bexington, near Dorchester, for ten years. Mr Michaud, 56, has been a regular on the television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series, advising on vegetable growing.

Anyone wanting to try the Dorset Naga will have to be patient as chillis are harvested only from July on. In Bangladesh the chillies grow in temperatures of well over 100F (38C) but in Dorset they thrive in polytunnels.

Aktar Miha, from the Indus Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, said that even in its home country the naga chilli was treated with respect. “It is used in some cooking, mainly with fish curries, but most people don’t cook with it. They hold it by the stalk and just touch their food with it,” he said.

“It has a refreshing smell and a very good taste but you don’t want too much of it. It is a killer chilli and you have to be careful and wash your hands and the cutting board. If you don’t know what you are doing it could blow your head off.”

FROM HOT TO NOT

Scoville Heat Units

Pure capsaicin: 15m to 16m

US Police-grade pepper spray: 5m

Dorset Naga: 923,000

Red Savina habanero: 577,000

Scotch bonnet: 100,000-325,000

Jamaican hot pepper: 100,000-200,000

Cayenne pepper: 30,000-50,000

Jalapeno pepper: 2,500-8,000

Tabasco sauce: 2,500

Pimento: 100 to 500

Bell pepper: 0

Dorset claims world's hottest chilli

By Richard Savill

 02/04/2006

A chilli pepper grown in a polytunnel in Dorset has been claimed as the world's hottest.

The Dorset Naga is so fiery that when the owners break the skin to remove the seeds to sow for the following year's crop they have to wear gloves and be outside in a strong wind so their eyes don't sting.

"It is something I wouldn't eat but some people must like them," said Joy Michaud, who developed the chilli at the Peppers by Post business she runs with her husband Michael at West Bexington.

An American laboratory found the chilli to be almost 60 per cent hotter than the one listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The Naga registered a Scoville heat unit of 876,000. The record holder is a Red Savina Habanero with a rating of 577,000.

The result was so startling that the Dorset pepper was sent for a second test to a laboratory in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association. It recorded a higher figure of 970,000 heat units. The Naga, which is sold with a health warning, was developed from a variety which originated in Bangladesh.

The Michauds found the chillis, collected the seeds and grew them. It was only when customers told them they were unable to eat curries containing half a small pepper that they realized how hot they were.

< p>Mrs Michaud said: "We bought the Naga Morich chilli from a shop in Bournemouth. It is revered by the Bangladeshis. We have all the certificates and believe it is a world record. We will be in touch with the Guinness Book of Records."

Aktar Miha, of the Indis Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, said: "Most people don't cook with it; they just have it near to them when they eat. They just touch their food with it. If you don't know what you are doing it could blow your head off."

News:

Dry chillies are now available great selection.

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© Dry River Horticulture, 2007.