Made for Stew: 7 Pot Chilli

If you love a spicy, hot meal every night, you only have to use one of these chillies and you’ll be set for a week. The name itself refers to the fact that one chilli will heat 7 pots of stew. So with this fire ball in your spice cupboard, you can challenge even the best of your fellow chilli lovers with extreme hot salsas and meals.

So where does it come from?

The 7 Pot is closely related to the infamous Trinidad Scorpion, the second hottest chilli pepper in the world. Both chillies originate from the Island of Trinidad to the northeast of Venezuela. So while they bring in the heat, they also bring in the Caribbean flavour. Yet even though Trinidad is their hometown, they’re not so commonly found in the local marketplace. Apparently the local chilli lovers of Trinidad have their wits about them and will stay away from the heat of the 7 Pot Pepper and its cousin.

Not only do these peppers share insane heat ratings, but also physical similarities. Both can be found as small red balls, burning themselves alive from the inside out, with little bubble-like bumps lining their crinkly skin.

A Record of a different kind

While a 7 Pot variety has never been able to claim World's Hottest Pepper like the Carolina Reaper or Trinidad Scorpion there are 5 different varieties of 7 Pot Chillies in the TOP 10 hottest chillies including:

• #3: 7 Pot Douglah (Chocolate) - 1.85 million SHUs
• #4: 7 Pot Primo - 1.47 million SHUs
• #8: 7 Pot Brain Strain - 1.35 million SHUs
• #9: 7 Pot Barrackpore - 1.3 million SHUs
• #10: 7 Pot Jonah - 1.2 million SHUs

A chilli of many flavours?

The average 7 Pot Pepper reaches heats as high as 1.2 million Scoville Units. However, with it’s recognition in the international chilli market, various strains of the 7 Pot have been created, with some reaching heats of 1.85 million SHU. 

The hottest of its kind is 7 Pot Chocolate, technically referred to as the 7 Pot Douglah. The chocolate in the name unfortunately refers only to its colour. If you’re strong enough to get through its searing heat and actually taste the pepper, you won’t be tasting chocolate. It has more of a fruity taste with a hint of nuts, making it one of the nicer tasting 7 Pots in the bunch.

One of the biggest of its kind is the 7 Pot Jonah. The plant itself is big and the peppers of this strain vary in heat. These peppers strains will range between 800,000 and 1.2 million, all giving a nice fruity flavour to the dish.

The sweetest and smoothest-skinned of its kind is the 7 Pot Burgundy. The pepper has a nice honey-like taste as soon as you bite into it. You’re still looking at heats of 1 million SHU, but if you’re a chilli head then this will be the nicest 7 Pot variety you can try.

Points for the coolest name goes to the 7 Pot Brain Strain pepper. Don’t expect any extra brain power, its name only comes from the way it looks -like a shrivelled up brain. This means there’s a lot more internal membrane in the pepper, making more space for the capsaicins to spread. While it’s not as hot as the Douglah, it reaches heats of 1.35 SHU, making it one to look out for.

There’s a few more 7 Pot strains to experiment with such as the 7 Pot Barrackpore, Red Giant and Primo, but we’ll leave that up to you to figure out.

Check out the ChilliBOM 7 Pot collection in the ChilliBOM Hot Sauce Store

To find out more about other chilli favourites