Carolina Reaper, Orange

Description

Carolina Reaper, Orange (C. chinense) is the orange-ripening member of the Reaper family, and the first thing to say about it is the thing most sellers leave out: the pods spend a long time looking yellow. The ripening runs light green → yellow → orange, and in a cool northern season that yellow stage can hold for weeks. If you pick by size rather than by colour you will harvest yellow pods almost every time. Wait for the orange to deepen — that is when the pod is actually finished.

The pods carry the full Reaper shape: 5–7 cm long and 2.5–4 cm wide, wrinkled and blistered, pendant, with the characteristic stinger tail and medium-thin walls. The flavour is bright and fruity with clear citrus notes, and one detail is worth knowing before you dry a batch: the powder from this one is reported sweeter than the other Reaper colours, with an excellent colour and aroma. That is the best reason to grow it over the red.

On heat, honesty beats a number. No laboratory has ever tested the orange form. Figures of two million SHU and more circulate among seed sellers with nothing behind them. The measured benchmark belongs to the red Carolina Reaper: 1,641,183 SHU average, tested at Winthrop University. Assume this one is in the same class and treat it accordingly.

Two further things worth knowing. The line is not fully stabilised — expect the occasional off-colour or off-shape pod, and isolate if you save seed. And like every Reaper colour form, it comes from independent growers rather than from the Reaper’s own breeder, who has only ever released the red.

Plants reach 60–90 cm and yield well, but this is a long-season superhot — reckon on 90 to 120 days or more to ripe pods, and start it early.

Categories: C. chinense , Super hot , Easy to grow