It all started in Trinidad and Tobago, the Scorpion Moruga Pepper sometimes called the
Moruga Scorpion is a small 2 or 3 inch long by 1 in wide pepper with heat to drop a water
buffalo to it’s knees… well, I don’t really know about that probably.
Developed by Wahid Ogeer this pepper has been studied since the 1990s by the University
of West Indies.
Requiring hot weather to thrive, extended heat with drought conditions will stress the
plant causing the scoville rating to skyrocket.
Some growers claim the use of worm castings as their secret weapon to max out the scoville
of the moruga scorpion.
The scoville is a unit of measurement to indicate the level of heat in a pepper.
The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion clocks in at 2,009,231 SHU or scoville units putting it
near the top of all the hottest peppers on earth.
Some are still unverified so it’s possible instead of being 2nd behind the Carolina reaper
the Moruga scorpion might be the 3rd or 4th hottest pepper in the world.
These peppers are so hot it becomes hard to distinguish the difference in heat between
the top peppers.
The biggest distinction among hot peppers is how they hit your mouth and how they burn.
Some will have sharp burning pain, others a throbbing, linger pain or the most bizarre
in my opinion are ones where the heat will continually grow slowly over time.
Offering a delicious fruity taste for the first 3 seconds which you’ll see soon with
my taste test of it this is one of the best tasting ultra-hot peppers out there.
Fierce competition continues to push these peppers to another level or the introduction
of new peppers.
The heat of the Trinidad moruga scorpion pepper increases as it changes color from green to
orange and finally red.
This wrinkly pepper was named because of it’s iconic scorpion stinger at the bottom.
This pepper is used in West Indes cuisine but is potentially dangerous to handle when
cooking.
The capsaicin or the chemical compound within the pepper that gives its heat can actually
burn your skin if you aren’t careful.
After I cut this pepper in half I wiped the sweat off my forehead and my head was burning
for 5 minutes afterward.
As this pepper is chopped up it releases more and more capsaicin unleashing more of it’s
heat.
It takes about 3 months to grow one of these peppers then you too can feel the pain of
the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper, let's get to the taste test.