Tabasco pepper

Tabasco pepper
Tabasco peppers (ripe and unripe)
GenusCapsicum
SpeciesCapsicum frutescens
Cultivar'Tabasco'
Heat Hot
Scoville scale30,000–50,000 SHU
Tabasco pepper on its bush in the Bergianska botanical gardens, Stockholm, 2013

The tabasco pepper is a variety of the chili pepper species Capsicum frutescens originating in Mexico. It is best known through its use in Tabasco sauce, followed by peppered vinegar.[1]

Like all C. frutescens cultivars, the tabasco plant has a typical bushy growth, which commercial cultivation makes stronger by trimming the plants. The tapered fruits, around 4 cm long, are initially pale yellowish-green and turn yellow and orange before ripening to bright red. Tabascos rate from 30,000 to 50,000[2] on the Scoville scale of heat levels,[3]. Tabasco fruits, like all other members of the C. frutescens species, remain erect when mature, rather than hanging down from their stems.

A large part of the tabasco pepper stock fell victim to the tobacco mosaic virus in the 1960s; the first resistant variety (Greenleaf tabasco) was not cultivated until around 1970.[4]

  1. ^ Tabasco Sauce History and Lore thespruceeats.com. Retrieved 31 August 2021
  2. ^ "HOT PEPPER HEAT SCALE". Bonnie Plants. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
  3. ^ McGee, Harold (2004). On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. by Simon and Schuster. p. 421. ISBN 0-684-80001-2.
  4. ^ Andrews, Jean (1998). The Pepper Lady's Pocket Pepper Primer. University of Texas Press. p. 151. ISBN 0-292-70483-6.

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