HABANERO HORTICULTURE

This small, somewhat lumpy chili pepper looks like it couldn’t start a fire to warm up a can of beans. It’s almost cute in its own way, what with its knobbly surface and all. You might even call the habanero the smaller, stouter sister of the oh-so elegant banana pepper. Don’t be fooled, though: Whether it’s decked out in lime green, bright yellow, soft orange, or fiery red, this plump little pepper takes its sleek and slender siblings out to the woodshed.
The habanero is one of the hottest chili variants Mother Nature ever cooked up. Perhaps a quick tutorial for the uninitiated: A pepper’s heat, which it gets from a substance called capsaicin, is measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Your typical bell pepper isn’t spicy at all, which is why it has zero Scoville units. Jalapeños are generally considered moderately hot and clock in at 1,500 to 10,000 SHU. Now, say hello to our little friend: Habanero peppers pack anywhere from 100,000 to 577,000 Scoville units and will burn your whole house down as quick as the devil himself. Assuming you’ve taken the proper medical precautions, they actually have a fruity taste that has made them a staple of Mexican, Brazilian, and Peruvian cuisine. Its name basically means “from Havana”, but the latest research indicates that the habanero’s actual origins lie on the Yucatán Peninsula. That’s still where most of the peppers are produced today – mainly orange and yellow variants. Red habaneros typically hail from the Caribbean.