Why did I decide to heed the call of the capsicum once more?
It's not exactly like Almapaprika and I have the space for it. we've gone from a house with a small garden to a flat with a long but narrow balcony, already occupied by three blueberry bushes, a hybiscus, and two other ones I always forget (Almapaprika will probably tell me what they are at some point when she reads this later).
Well, I guess I have to thank my friends for this (Let's call them Ancho, Poblano, Pasilla, and Jalapeño).
I got a birthday gift from them in winter, which consisted of packs of seeds and a terra-cotta plant pot for strawberries (you know, the ones that are tall and a bit broad, but have openings on the sides, so you can have multiple plants hanging from the pot). The seeds were from the Chile Pepper Company (I still have some issues with them, which is why I don't link them on this blog). The packs contained:
-Belpicen Chillies (an ornamental chilli)
-Esplendor Chillies (another ornamental chilli)
-Numex Suave Orange Chillies (a 'no heat' variety of Habanero)
-Chocolate Sweet Pepper (a sweet pepper...chocolate in colour)
-Ring of Fire (a slightly hotter variety of Cayenne)
So, those five little seed packs set the wheels in motion, so to speak.
Almapaprika and I travelled to 'Aji Chombo Land' for Christmas to see the family and to attend a wedding (not mixing those peppers in this salad.) of two dear pepper friends of mine. I can now kick myself for not having brought back seeds when I returned, because the 'call' grew louder and stronger in my head.
I ended up placing a second order for seeds from a place called World of Chillies (I ordered their collection of the 10 hottest chillies in the World packet):
- -Naga Morich (Scorching at 1,500,000 SHU from the Asam region in north-eastern India/Bangladesh. That would be Scoville Heat Units. Long story short: how they measure heat via the chemical compound that causes the heat, capsaicin, in a chilli. Pure capsaicin is 16,000,000 units. Police grade pepper spray is around 6,000,000. A Jalapeño pepper has around 30,000. now you can imagine how utterly hot this pepper is)
- -Red Savina (a type of Habanero from California. Hottest one there is)
- -Chocolate Habanero (A chocolate...habanero. Smoky in flavour. Imagine that).
- -Fatalii (yellow chinense variety from Africa. Also really hot. The rest of the chillies in the collection range between 250,000 and 400,000 SHUs, so clearly not for the faint hearted).
- -Orange Habanero (continuity but variation in colour. I like that)
- -Scotch Bonnet (a chinense variety that looks like them little scottish hats).
- -Tepin (Grandaddy of the domesticated capsicums).
- -African Devil (aka, the Piri-Piri chilli from Nando's famous hot sauces)
- -Jamaican Hot Pepper (yet another habanero. You begin to get the idea that the chinenses are the ones to fear).
- -Rocoto Rojo (Capsicum pubescens. The plants are fuzzy and the chillies have black seeds. Oh, and they are really spicy).
There was supposed to be a free pack of Chocolate habaneros for anyone ordering seeds (more chocolate habs? really?), but I cheekily asked the people at World of Chillies if they could instead send me some seeds from another type. Guess they didn't like my cheeky request, because I have yet to see that free pack of seeds.
But does it end there? (Do I really need to ask?)
Nope.
Yours truly goes and makes another purchase from the Chile Pepper Company (this time they come through, but I'm still not convinced by them), this time ordering:
- -Etna Chillies (ornamentals again. i need something to fill that blasted terra-cotta pot)
- -Stromboli Chillies (again, ornamental)
- -Black Cubans (ornamental Tepins, but really cool looking)
- -White Habaneros (Hey, if I can crossbreed all the colours I've got, I'll try to make a 'rainbow habanero')
Yep, I just can't get enough (Oh, did I forget to mention I still had chillies from Tradewinds Tropical Fruits bought in 2007, as well as Chilipiquin's Chi-Chien chillies?)
:-) More to Follow!
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