Bhut Jolokia losing its sting years after being named world's hottest chilli
Guwahati, Sept. 15: It was considered to be world’s hottest chilli on the earth, but “Bhut Jolokia” has gradually been loosing its hotness and pungent flavour due to cross pollination and certain changes in farming methods.
According to research and findings of some agricultural scientists of Assam Agricultural University, the Bhut Jolokia, which was listed in the Guinness World Records in 2007 as hottest chilli of world has come down on the Scoville level---a scale that scientists use to measure the hotness of chillies.
The director of Assam Agriculture University (Research) Dr GN Hazarika said, “In 2008, we recorded its heat as 1.5 million Scoville Heat Units (SHU) which gradually came down to 0.4 million SHU most recently. The data were collected from different locations. Our studies have found that Bhut Jolokia has been gradually losing its unique properties of being super-hot.”
It is significant that because of its high pungency, the Bhut Jolokia of Assam has been on high demand as defence laboratories have been working on a project to produce non-lethal chilli grenades to flush out terrorists from impenetrable locations. The defence laboratories have also been developing a smoke grenade of chilli powder to control riot-like situations.
The agricultural scientists pointed out, “Though it was recorded as the hottest chilli in the world, Bhut Jolokia has now come down to the third position in the global list as it was superseded by Carolina Reaper of the USA and the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion of Trinidad and Tobago.”
King chilly pickle is very popular among vegetarians and non-vegetarians all over the world for its unique spicy flavour and heat. The pungency of Bhut Jolokia is such that it is also used to keep herds of wild elephants away from the agricultural land.
Dr Hazarika however said that they have already started work on maintaining the original degree of pungency by identifying its actual reasons.
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 Bhut Jolokia’s hotness, they are yet to reach a conclusive opinion on whether any factor like frequent changes in agro-climatic conditions caused a major impact on the qualities of the king chilly.
