Carolina Reaper, Purple

Description

Carolina Reaper, Purple is the most beautiful plant in the Reaper family, and it keeps changing all season. The pods start out a greenish violet on dark, almost black-purple branches and finish a glossy red — but what happens in between is the reason to grow it.

In our northern greenhouse the ripening runs through a remarkable range of colours: deep magenta and plum, dusty mauve, chocolate brown, olive green washed with violet, with amber and orange breaking through as the red takes over. Often several of these sit on one pod at the same time, mottled and streaked, and the tail tends to hold on to its purple the longest. A mature plant carries every stage at once — pale mauve, near-black and bright red on the same branches — and it is quite simply one of the most striking chili plants we grow.

The purple is driven by light. Anthocyanin production in the skin rises with sun exposure, so pods in full light colour most deeply, while those shaded under the leaves come out noticeably paler. If you want the darkest pods, keep them exposed.

The pods run 4–7 cm with the wrinkled, blistered Reaper surface and a stinger that varies from long to missing altogether, on medium-thin walls. The heat is Reaper-class, and here too it is worth being straight: no laboratory measurement of this line has ever been published. Growers and sellers estimate somewhere around one to 1.6 million SHU. For reference, the red Carolina Reaper’s lab-tested average is 1,641,183 SHU. Treat this one with exactly the same respect.

Flavour reports vary. Most growers describe it as fruity; some find it floral to the point of bitterness. It belongs in hot sauce, in ferments and dried to powder — though a powder made from ripe pods is red, not purple.

This line is not fully stabilised. Expect variation between plants in pod shape, tail length and foliage colour. The plants run 60–150 cm depending on conditions, set heavily, and ripen late, so start them early.

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