THE Carolina Reaper is a hot topic of conversation once again after a man was hospitalised after scoffing one of the spicy sprouts.
Here's the lowdown on the highly spiced pepper that gave a bloke a "thunderclap" headache.
What is the Carolina Reaper?
Originally named HP22B this red and gnarly pepper packs a hell of a punch.
The Carolina Reaper can be found around the Rock Hill area of South Carolina in the United States.
It was bred by "Smokin" Ed Currie, owner of the PuckerButt Pepper Company based in Fort Mill.
They produced the pungent pepper by interbreeding a Bhut jolokia and a red habanero, dubbing it "Reaper" owing to its scythe like tail.
How hot is it on the scoville scale?
The Carolina Reaper is registered by Guinness World Records as having an average heat level of 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).
That was just the average for the batch but the spiciest individual pepper clocked up a whopping 2.2million SHU.
A regular habanero chilli clocks in somewhere between 100,000 - 350,000 SHU with the humble jalapeno far lower still between 3,500 to 8,000 SHU.
Is it the world's hottest chilli?
The Carolina Reaper was crowned the hottest chilli in the world by Guinness World Records in 2013 when it defeated the Trinidad Scorpion "Butch T".
It still remains atop Guinness' list but some others have claimed to be even spicier.
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In May last year Mike Smith from St Asaph, North Wales, claimed to have topped it with the Dragon's Breath pepper with a reported 2.4 million SHUs but has yet to have that verified by the record keepers.
A pepper purported to be even hotter still was claimed by the Reaper's creator, Ed Currie, in September 2017.
Dubbed "Pepper X" Ed claimed it was reportedly more than 3.1 million SHUs but again it has yet to be verified by Guinness.
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