Orange hot chilli pepper grown in Devon may be world's strongest
There are not many foodstuffs which come with a health and safety warning but the Naga Hari is one of them.
Grown by chilli enthusiast-turned-farmer Jon Rose, the innocent-looking orange pepper could well turn out to be the hottest chilli ever grown.
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Jon Rose checks the chilli plants after a bumper year for his fiery crops
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FIERY FELLA: Jon Rose says he is delighted with his bumper crop of chillis
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deceptive devil: The small orange pepper could well turn out to be the hottest chilli ever grown
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HAND-PICKED: Jon picks his chillis and immediately sends them out to customers first class
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Jon Rose checks the chilli plants after a bumper year for his fiery crops on the farm outside Exeter picture: LAURENCE UNDERHILL
For several years the Dorset Naga, developed from seeds obtained in Bangladesh, has laid claim to the hot spot, with a reading of almost a million units on the Scoville scale, the measurement developed to test the heat of peppers.
Mr Rose, from Beacon Heath, has been growing and selling chillies with his wife Sandy for six years now, since the couple set up one of Britain's first farms dedicated to the plants in a field on the outskirts of Exeter.
The 49-year-old has tasted and coped with the hottest plants in the world and reckons his Devon-grown pepper might just prove more fiery than its Dorset rival.
He developed the hybrid from seeds sourced in rural India by his father.
"We are waiting to have it tested by a reputable university," said Mr Rose. "Until then we won't know exactly how hot it is. I have tasted a lot of extremely hot food and my tolerance level for heat is a lot higher than most people's, but the Naga Hari is seriously hot."
Mr Rose uses a number of techniques to grow plants here in Devon, which are more used to a warmer climate.
The enterprise is part of a growing trend for exotic crops to be grown in Britain.
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