World's hottest peppers, by species

[Shule]

What are the world's hottest pepper varieties for each species of pepper?

We already know C. chinense (Pepper X).

How about C. annuum? The hottest one I know about there is Randy Sine's Evil Jalapeno, which I personally think easily rivals a Habanero (with Habaneros being about 300k SHU; but I wouldn't say it's hotter than one). Anyone know one that's at least 500,000 SHU?

Then we've got C. baccatum, C. pubescens, C. frutescens, and whatever else.

I don't suppose there are official ones. I'm just looking for your thoughts.

[pepperhead212]

I've had some C. annuum that were around 225k, but nothing like the old habaneros, in the 400-500k zone. I also had a 300k C. frutescens years ago - some African pepper, Mombasa - but it turned out it had a longer season - 150 days - than the old chinense peppers, which unfortunately ran over 120 days. Fortunately, that has gotten much shorter, through the years!

[karstopography]

The native Chiltepin is the hottest annum I’ve ever seen. These are very small, very seedy, and very hot. I’ve had habanero and chiltepin and I have to say the chiltepin are more painfully hot, but officially these are supposed to top out at 100,000, well below Habaneros. Maybe being a wild type that spontaneously shows up in random places around here these chiltepin are variable on how hot they are.

[pepperhead212]

A chiltepin is one of those that I found that was around 225k. I had grown 2 others, up to that point (sometime in the late 90s), which were much milder, maybe 100-120k, like the small Thai bird peppers I grew then (very hot, but little flavor). But the last one I grew, the much hotter one, was also much smaller - maybe 3/16". Our method for comparing the heat was not very scientific, but my friend and I would compare a new pepper to one that had been tested (at least we had been told!), by seeing how long we could chew an equal weight of the different peppers, before having to spit it out! That hotter chiltepin was about the same as a Scotch Bonnet, that had been rated at 225k - not as hot as many habaneros, and didn't have the intense habanero flavor, which is why I didn't get hooked on those, but it was a good thing to use for comparing. Those chiltepins were so small that we figured that one average Scotch bonnet, or similar sized habaneros, was the same weight as 48 chiltepins! So our comparison to a half of a habanero was chewing 24 chiltepins, which was more instantaneous heat (habaneros are a little slower, but catch up quickly!), but not nearly as hot as the habaneros in the upper ranges (this was long before the superhots!), and the Scotch bonnet was about the closest one. The Maui Purple I grew back then was about the same - about the same size as a Thai dragon, but bitter, even when ripened, with this heat that was hotter than any other annuum pepper I had grown, and about the same as the chiltepin and Scotch bonnet. I had been looking for a similar, but edible pepper, but no other peppers had those dark purple leaves - just purple peppers, and a little purple in the leaves. But I found it this season, and it was the same pepper, but only 70-80k, and good fresh or dried.