Some Like it Hot… The Dorset Naga
Neighbours Joy and Michael run a small business, Sea Spring Seeds, selling a wonderful assortment of seeds and chillies but also gained local notoriety for cultivating the ‘Dorset Naga’.
If you haven’t heard of it, the Dorset Naga originated in Bangladesh and is one of the hottest chillies in the world. Capable of reaching a million Scoville heat units or more – which is chilli for seriously hot! In fact eating one would test even the hardiest of chilli-heads!
After cultivating the Naga seeds in one of their many poly tunnels, Joy and Dave had the seeds evaluated by experts in a US laboratory. The results revealed that their Dorset Naga was 346,000 SHU hotter than the current world record holder –so slightly hotter than they were anticipating!
This chilli has to be handled with care so harvesting the Dorset Naga requires precautionary measures such as wearing gloves and cutting the peppers outside in order to prevent damage to the hands and eyes. When we visited they were not ready for picking so sadly we didn't witness this unusual process.
The level of fascination with this wrinkled, wedge-shaped fruit led to two of our team using them in homemade curries. Dawn described the experience as ‘lethal’ and Deborah swears she had steam coming out of her ears! Despite this though, she’s recently bought another plant!
We’d love to know if you've tried one and survived...
For more information about the Dorset Naga visit the Sea Spring Seeds website.
