Chiltepín
A sharp, fast heat that fades quickly, which Mexican cooks call arrebatado; America's Test Kitchen finds the related pequín bright and citrusy.
50,000 to 100,000 SHU, per Fiery Foods (DeWitt). University of Arizona Extension puts it higher, starting at 70,000. Log scale against the hottest chile in this guide.
The chiltepín is a tiny, round, wild chile, a quarter to half an inch across, and it is very hot. University of Arizona Extension calls it the wild ancestor of domesticated peppers, the mother of all peppers. Texas made it the official State Native Pepper in 1997.
Chiltepín grows wild from the canyons of southern Arizona down through Mexico, usually in the shade of mesquite, ironwood, or hackberry. Birds eat the ripe red fruit, feel none of the heat, and spread the seeds. University of Arizona Extension says people domesticated chiles from this plant 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.
Dave DeWitt sorts the names this way: the round wild pods are chiltepíns, the oblong cultivated ones are piquíns or pequíns, and Texans call the wild ones chilipiquíns. In Mexico wild pods are gathered and sold fresh, dried, and in salsas. In Sonora they are an important crop, and in 1988 wild chiltepíns sold for as much as $48 a pound in the United States.
The Texas resolution of 1997 calls the chiltepín Texas' only native pepper and praises it for stews and red-hot Texas chili. Two years earlier the legislature had named the jalapeño the State Pepper.
Sources
- Desert Foods for Tomorrow: Wild Chile, Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum (University of Arizona Cooperative Extension)
- Pepper Profile: Piquin (Dave DeWitt, Fiery Foods & Barbecue Central)
- Heat Scale Updated (Dave DeWitt, Fiery Foods & Barbecue Central)
- Backyard Gardener #174: Growing Peppers and Chiles (Jeff Schalau, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, 2024)
- H.C.R. No. 82, 75th Texas Legislature (1997): chiltepin as official State Native Pepper
- Growing Chile Peppers in New Mexico Gardens, Guide H-240 (Walker and Bosland, NMSU Cooperative Extension, 2019)
- All About Common Dried Chiles (America's Test Kitchen)
- The Chili con Carne Project, Part 2: Chili Conquers the USA (Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach, Fiery Foods & Barbecue Central)