Have You Got A Question About Chillies ?

You've got the questions and now you've come to the right page for the answers.

The Questions

• Full cream milk or yoghurt - the capsaicin is soluble in many fats, and attaches to the casein in milk as well
• Ice-cream - Not quite as effective at taking away the capsaicin as the above, but the coldness does bring some rapid relief
• Vodka - capsaicin is partly soluble in alcohol, so high alcohol spirits work (i.e 37% +) - but you have to spit it out, otherwise it will still burn on the way through
• Because capsaicin is an oil, it does not mix with water. So, swishing water around your mouth will only make it worse as the water simply spreads the capsaicin around even more

This heat level of this amazing chilli was measured by High Performance Liquid Chromatography and came in at a whopping 1,001,304 Scoville Units !

That means there is a chilli out there that is as hot, or hotter, than many of the concentrated hot sauces which have a certain amount of distilled capsaicin in them !

Nigel, we do ship to Australia and have for many years. We have had problems with customs once. If it is a big order they seem to take a closer look than the smaller orders. Fiery regards, Pepper Joe www.pepperjoe.com

Nigel, I have a lot of customers down under. The packages usually are opened by your customs people, but they do get through.

Dave Anderson TLCC http://www.tough-love.com

Q: How Do Chillies Produce The Heat Sensation ?

A: This is not going to be a short, quick answer however as there a several points to present.

Firstly, there are a number of receptors in your taste buds and one of these is sensitive to capsaicin (the chemical in chillies which produce the heat/pain signals we get). Capsaicin produces these heat/pain signals by interacting with neuropeptides; incomplete proteins in the body that perform a number of different functions.

There are three well studied neuropeptides that interact with capsaicin and these are calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), neurokinin A (NKA), and substance P. Substance P is the primary agent for delivering the heat/pain signal to the brain. These neuropeptides are produced when the capsaicin sensitive nerves (or receptors) are stimulated by the presence of capsaicin. The neuropeptides transmit signals to the brain resulting in a physical reaction - pain is one of these results.

These capsaicin sensitive nerves can only produce neuropeptides at a certain rate. When the nerve is depleted, it is no longer able to send pain messages to the brain. This is one reason why people who eat a lot of chilli are able to stand a lot of heat. It’s essentially a process of acclimatising to capsaicin. The depletion of neuropeptides from the nerve is only temporary, ranging from a few minutes to a few days depending on the amount of capsaicin the nerves have been exposed to. If you want to be able to handle the really hot stuff, you need to regularly consume capsaicin.

The other reason that some people can stand a lot of heat is that each person has a different density (so many per cm2 )of taste buds on their tongue, and tests have shown that people that can stand a lot of chilli heat (and aren’t acclimatized as discussed above) have a very low density of tastebuds, i.e. they have a poor sense of taste compared to people with higher densities.

OK, enough science.

Q: Can You Identify My Chilli For Me ?

• I get a large number of requests about this and answering them all would simply consume more time than I have available, and


• All chilli species cross-pollinate very easily, i.e. cross breed, and it is nearly impossible to idetify a chilli when it is of a mixed parentage

However, don't give up just yet, there are a couple of avenues left open to you at this point;

• The Chileman site in the UK has the largest, searchable chilli database that I am aware of. You can access it here


• I have descriptions of the more common chilli varieties here.