Red Savina Habanero

The Red Savina pepper is a cultivar of the habanero chile pepper, which has been selectively bred to produce hotter, heavier, and larger fruit.

In February 2007, the Red Savina chili was displaced in Guinness World Records as the hottest chili in the world by the Naga Jolokia pepper (Ghost Pepper). The Red Savina held the record from 1994 until 2006.

Red Savina peppers are said to a score up to 577,000 on the Scoville scale, but this often quoted figure was never verified; a comparison experiment carried out by a group of researchers including Regents Professor Paul W. Bosland at the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University in 2005 revealed an average heat level of 248,556 SHUs for Red Savina habaneros.

I recently received a batch of Red Savinas at I’d agree that they were on the lower end of the heat scale. A group of friends and I did a taste test between the Red Savina habs and some regular orange habaneros I had grown, and the orange ones were much hotter. But like all peppers, the heat of habaneros can vary greatly depending on seed lineage, climate and soil.

Frank Garcia of GNS Spices, in Walnut, California, is credited with being the developer of the Red Savina habanero. The story goes that Frank was plowing under a large field of orange Habaneros after his buyer withdrew his proposed buying price, rather than sell them at a lower price. While plowing the crop, he spotted one strange red fruited plant among the regular orange habaneros. He saved this one mutant plant and through selective breeding, the Red Savina strain was developed.

TASTE: Sweet & fruity heat. One of my favorite tasting peppers.