From the archive record
Varieties of chillies exhibited at the Horticulture Competition during the Hornbill Festival. The Ghost Pepper (Bhot Jolokia) also known as Bih Jolokia, ghost pepper, ghost chili pepper, red naga chilli, and ghost chilli is an interspecific hybrid cultivated in the Indian states of Assam and Nagaland. It grows in the Indian states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. There was initially some confusion and disagreement about whether the Bhut was a Capsicum frutescens or a Capsicum chinense pepper, but DNA tests showed it to be an interspecies hybrid, mostly C. chinense with some C. frutescens genes. In 2007, Guinness World Records certified that the Ghost Pepper (Bhot Jolokia) was the world's hottest chili pepper, 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce; however, as of 2012 it was superseded by the