Caribbean Red Habanero

Species: Capsicum chinense | Origin: Mexico | Pungency: Extremely Hot

Caribbean Red Habanero, sometimes wrongly labelled as 'Red Habanero', is a very popular and widely grown heirloom variety originating from the Yucatán Peninsula region of Mexico. The plants have a fairly compact growth habit and produce excellent yields of lantern-shaped chillies which start light green and ripen through several shades of orange and then to bright red. About two weeks before the ripening process begins they turn a darker shade of green, and the fruits are typically smooth and slightly spherical, although variations do occur. Caribbean Red Habanero chillies have an amazing tropical fruity aroma and a citrus-like flavour and work very well in salsas, sauces, stews, stir fries and Caribbean and Yucatecan cuisines.

Around 2012, the Caribbean Red Habanero began showing up in online lists of Monsanto cultivars that people should avoid growing if they wanted to stop giving their money to the devil. The reason for this was because some sources once attributed the development of Caribbean Red to Seminis Vegetable Seeds in the USA, which was later acquired by Monsanto. The claims of it being a Monsanto cultivar were likely due to a combination of exaggeration and misinformation due to Seminis's role in stabilising and then commercialising Caribbean Red. Seminis did obtain seeds for it and grew it out over several generations to ensure that it grew true to type, but the plant itself was originally discovered on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula as a landrace variety and it was not created or bred from scratch in the USA. However, over time, it led to conflicting information due to some people overstating Seminis's involvement in 'development' as opposed to refinement and then distribution or commercialisation. Some seed companies then began describing Caribbean Red as an improved or upgraded version of Red Habanero.

Oddly enough, some garden centres and seed companies in the USA sell a version of Caribbean Red Habanero that produces elongated fruit as opposed to the lantern-shaped or somewhat spherical-shaped fruit that is more typical of Caribbean Red. Burpee used to have photos showing the elongated version next to their seed listing, but nowadays they have photos showing the true version. Most of the Caribbean Red Habaneros available today start green and ripen through orange and then to red. However, a strain that I grew from 2009 until 2012 ripened from green to bright red without passing through an orange stage. That strain was hotter and tastier than the Caribbean Reds that are more commonly sold today. A photo of that strain is shown second from the bottom.

Caribbean Red and Red Savina are two names often used interchangeably to refer to this variety. However, true Red Savina is an F1 hybrid that was developed by Frank Garcia of GNS Spices in Walnut, California. Until 2011, it was protected by the US Plant Variety Protection Act (PVP #9200255), and from 1994 until 2006 it held the Guinness World Record title for world's hottest chilli with a supposed Scoville scale rating of 577,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). The breeding strains for Red Savina are not publicly known, but being an F1 hybrid this means that if someone took seeds from a true Red Savina plant and tried growing more plants from those seeds the following year then the resulting plants would be unstable F2 hybrids. It takes approximately seven generations to create a somewhat stable hybrid, so anyone who grew Red Savina from saved seeds of their own plants would have needed to grow it for at least seven years before they ended up with something that was semi-stable. Perhaps this is what happened and the resulting hybrids looked very similar to Caribbean Red or maybe the two names just got mixed up over time, which is often the case with chilli peppers.

In the UK, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain genuine Caribbean Red Habanero seeds. Although many seed sellers do sell seeds for a variety they have listed as Caribbean Red, and even use a photo showing the correct fruit to accompany the listing, more often than not what you end up with is not Caribbean Red but instead another variety called Antillais Caribbean. Antillais Caribbean produces fruit that is ribbed and somewhat blocky-shaped as opposed to the smooth lantern-shaped or somewhat spherical-shaped fruit of Caribbean Red. Some seed sellers who sell seeds for Caribbean Red, Red Savina and Antillais Caribbean even use a photo of Caribbean Red Habanero to accompany all three listings.

Page published on: 4th May 2020