World’s hottest chilli, Bhut Jolokia, loses sting

Bhut Jolokia, which was named the world’s hottest chilli by Guinness World Records, has gradually been losing its heat and pungent flavour due to cross pollination and certain changes in farming, researchers said.

According to the findings of agricultural scientists from Assam Agricultural University, the Bhut Jolokia has come down on the Scoville scale — a scale used to measure the heat of chillis.

“In 2008, we recorded its heat as 1.5 million Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) which gradually came down to 0.4 million SHU most recently. The data were collected from different locations. Our studies have found that bhot jolokia has been gradually losing its unique properties of being super-hot,” research director of Assam Agriculture University, Dr G.N. Hazarika, said.

Assam’s Bhut Jolokia has been on high demand due to its pungency, as defence laboratories have been working on a project to produce non-lethal chilli grenades to flush out terrorists from impenetrable locations.

“Though it was recorded as the hottest chilli in the world, bhot jolokia has now come down to the third position in the global list as it was superseded by Carolina Reaper of the USA and Trinidad moruga scorpion of Trinidad and Tobago,” scientists said.

He said they had already started work to restore the original flavour. Though, agricultural scientists were of view that cross-pollination of flowers with different kinds of chillies and changing farming patterns in the state may have changed the scale of bhot jolokia heat, they are yet to reach to a concluisive opinion whether any factor like frequent changes in agro-climatic conditions caused a major impact on the qualities of the king chilly.