Guinness World Records recently crowned Pepper X as the newest, hottest pepper in the world, with an average 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units. That’s more than 1 million units greater than the previous record-holder: Carolina Reaper (1,640,000 SHUs). The notorious “ghost pepper” is a mere 1 million SHUs. A jalapeño is usually between 3,000 and 8,000 SHUs.
The Scoville scale was created in 1912 to measure pungency of chile peppers. It’s based on the concentration of capsaicinoids in the plant. Capsaicinoids are essentially chemical irritants produced by the plant as deterrents.