Red Savina pepper facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Red Savina |
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A Red Savina habanero, at near-optimum ripeness. Note characteristic deep red color.
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| Species | Capsicum chinense |
| Cultivar | 'Red Savina' |
| Origin | California, United States |
| Heat |  Very hot |
| Scoville scale | 350,000-577,000 SHU |
The Red Savina pepper is a very hot type of habanero chili. It is a special kind of plant, called a cultivar, which means it was carefully grown to be spicier, heavier, and bigger than regular habanero peppers.
A person named Frank Garcia from California is known for creating the Red Savina. He carefully chose the hottest peppers to breed, but exactly how he did it is a secret.
What Does the Red Savina Pepper Look Like?
The Red Savina pepper is usually about 2 inches (5 cm) long and 1.5 inches (3.5 cm) wide. People who grow them say they look "wrinkled" and have a shape like a "Chinese lantern."
Unlike a normal orange habanero, the Red Savina is a deep, dark red color. It might have been created by breeding spicy red habanero peppers together.
How Hot Is the Red Savina Pepper?
For a while, the Red Savina chili was known as the hottest chili in the world! It held this record in the Guinness World Records from 1994 to 2006.
Scientists use something called the Scoville scale to measure how hot peppers are. This scale gives peppers a number called Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). Some reports said the Red Savina could reach over 577,000 SHUs. However, a study in 2005 found that the Red Savina habanero usually has about 248,556 SHUs. The spiciest ones they found in their labs were around 500,000 SHUs.
To give you an idea of how hot that is:
- An average orange habanero pepper usually scores about 200,000 SHUs.
- The bhut jolokia chili, which took the record from the Red Savina in 2007, is much hotter, averaging over 1,000,000 SHUs!
- The current world record holder (as of 2017) is the Carolina Reaper, which can score over 1,600,000 SHUs. That's super hot!
