Red Savina

Red Savina is a red habanero once rated the world’s hottest chilli: Guinness credited it with 577,000 SHU. Independent measurements later showed it is not quite so exceptional.

How it came about

According to the variety protection application, Frank Garcia Jr. found a single red-fruited plant on 27 November 1989 in a 30-acre field of standard habanero while working for GNS Spices of Walnut, California. He grew a stable line from its seed over 1990–1992, and on 30 December 1993 the US Department of Agriculture issued him Plant Variety Protection certificate No. 9200255 for 18 years. In the application Garcia states that Red Savina has pods 1–4 cm longer than standard habanero, red rather than orange when ripe, thicker walls and 16 g per fruit instead of 9 g – and that it is “50,000 plus” SHU hotter; a 1991 lab test gave 250,000–300,000 SHU against 200,000 for standard habanero. Saveur magazine, however, says Garcia later “confessed” to breeding the variety deliberately, which contradicts the account in the application.

The record and its end

Guinness World Records listed Red Savina as the world’s hottest chilli at 577,000 SHU (Saveur gives 575,000 SHU and the year 1994) until Bhut Jolokia took over in 2007. Yet when NMSU’s Chile Pepper Institute grew both in the same 2005 trial, Red Savina measured only 248,556 SHU – while orange habanero came out at 357,729 SHU, with no statistically significant difference between them. Heat depends heavily on growing conditions and sample. Today it is far outdone by the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X.

Related

Habanero · Bhut Jolokia · Scotch bonnet · Scoville scale

Sources

1. USDA AMS: Plant Variety Protection Certificate No. 9200255 – Habanero Pepper ‘Red Savina’
2. Bosland P. W., Baral J. B. (2007). HortScience 42(2): 222–224. PDF
3. Saveur (2022): Decade of the chile pepper