Chocolate Habanero
Our Experience:
This is a gorgeous looking Habanero plant. We enjoy growing it since it is wonderful plant to watch branching out, flowering and producing fruit. The dark green foliage is superb in our Indoor Grow-room. It takes a long time to nurture this plant to the point of fruiting and ripening pods.
The fruit pods are wonderful to watch ripen. They begin a dark green. They then begin to darken from the stem down into a delicious looking deep dark chocolate brown.
The fruit pods get larger than most being between two to three inches long and a healthy inch plus across. When freshly picked off the plant a distinctive earthy smell is at the stem where it is separated from the plant. The fresh pods are meaty and juicy inside. The aroma of slicing the pod open is a combination of sweet, earthy coco. It is pungent and you know that they are hot!
Our Peppers4Fun grown Chocolate Habanero’s are the earthy coco heat in our Cherry Chocolate Habanero Jam. This Jam is only available to customers in Ohio.
You can order:
Chocolate Habanero Dehydrated Fruit Pods – These are wonderful when re-hydrated.
Cherry with Chocolate Habanero Pepper Jams
** for local chef’s – contact us for reserving your fresh Chocolate Habanero Fruit Pods
What Others Say:
We really appreciate that the folks at Pepperscale.com and Chilipeppermadness.com have a fantastic description of the Chocolate Habanero. We pretty much reuse their words since they say it all well. We will use quotes appropriately.
Although we reference those folks here for their insights and descriptions – Please buy your Chocolate Habanero products here.
Now the Rest Of the Story:
Smokey Sweet Heat:
Scoville heat units (SHU): 425,000 – 577,000
Jalapeño reference point: 53 to 231 times hotter
Origin: Caribbean
The Chocolate Habanero “is a cultivar of habanero peppers, like the Red Savina habanero, that packs a serious punch. In fact, it’s even spicier than the Red Savina with unique earthy and smoky undertones that compliment their typical habanero sweetness.”
The HEAT:
“They are. In terms of the Scoville scale, chocolate habaneros tend to hit around 425,000 – 577,000 Scoville heat units. That can easily be double the heat of a regular habanero. Versus the Red Savina, chocolate habaneros are very similar in terms of heat. The main difference: the mildest chocolate (around 450,000 SHU) will always be hotter than the mildest Red Savina (350,000 SHU).
With the jalapeño reference point, you are talking on average 142 times hotter than a mild jalapeño. This makes chocolate habaneros one of the hottest peppers around, but still significantly milder than the jump up to the ghost pepper (starting at 855,000 SHU).”
Different Varieties:
“You’ll see lots of different names for these chilies: black Congo, dark habanero, Jamaican hot chocolate, black habanero, Senegal hot chocolate, and Cuban habanero just to name a few. These are all cultivated variations of the habanero that share similar dark looks, earthy sweet taste (with slight variations), and big-time heat (again with slight variations).
The pods of chocolates tend to be slightly larger than your typical habanero pepper – about 2 inches in length. They start emerald-green and as they ripen they take on the unique dark brown color.”
What Others Say They Taste Like:
“These are still habaneros, so there’s a fruity sweetness behind the extreme heat. But unlike other hot peppers in the family, the chocolates bring a unique hint of earthiness and smokiness to the experience. They are an excellent chili for a Mexican mole sauce, or if you like rich salsa with an earthier taste, using chocolate habaneros is a great choice.”