Taste report Capsicum cardenasii a bipolar chilli?

Being busy with my care farm project "De Groeistek", I really don't have a load off time on my hands.
But it is Sunday off, so here's a write up!
Thanks to Chris Fowler, I got to taste the Capsicum cardenasii again.
This is one odd chilli sure it is a wild chilli, but this one is odd.
I now have tasted 3 different ones, that go from mild or non pungent, to pretty darn hot.
The tastes vary a lot too, from lovely and sweet to bitter as can be.

The first one I tasted was the Capsicum Cardenasii 904750136, all I can say is WOW, not hot but what a taste !!!!!
I tasted one cardenasii first. I tasted a second, and gave both kids one too. Fruit tones, sweet and a distinct liquorice taste.  That was one superb and stunning little berry with a taste like modern commercial chillies are totally lacking off. Both kids tasted the sweetness and the liquorice as well, and wanted more !
This tiny 5 mm berry has more taste than a “water grown” cayenne !
Last year I tasted one that was hot, but had great taste, with sweet wood tones and a lot of fruits.
This year however, it is bitter as can be, still has its wood tones, and almost no sweet.
The sharp bitter is its first taste, chicory like and has the taste of Garland Chrysantemum, tomato and still sweet wood be it faint.

It really makes me think of Garland Chrysanthemum, and that is not my favourite taste I have to say.

It looks lovely, and it is lovely, don't you think? Well. it is a chilli that will surprise you, as you will never know how it'll taste. Will it taste like apple next year?

Cheers Bart

There’s dried chilli and there are dried chillies.

Some time ago I had the chance to try some dried chillies from Chinaspice in the UK. These are the chaps that send me the Szechuan flower pepper and gave me a load of information about the Chengdu cuisine.
Jenny Song wrote an excellent book on the Szechuan cuisine by the way.

Anyway, I have been tasting more than a load of dried chillies and the taste varies a lot! And I am still working myself through a mountain of them and really, what a difference. Now I want to take your time for a bit, to tell you about the differences I have found.
I learned anybody can mess up the best chilli, but hardly anybody can make a good chilli taste great after it is dried. And the secret is in the time. Now sure, we all are busy and I would love to have 40 hours in a day or more, but for some things you need to take time. And drying chillies does.

Now I had them in the oven, dehydrator and what not. And it didn’t take long to learn that if I am in a hurry, and dry them at higher temperatures the taste goes bad. You always get this almost “just about not burned” taste where the sugars go beyond caramelising. . . Brr
So lower at the temp is better, also in a dehydrator, still there is something missing.
Then I air dried them on strings, like they do in France, well hellooooo! That was the taste I was looking for and wanted. And I was sure to have tasted it before, it was in air dried wild chillies I got from Bolivia, and from Mexican chillies. I got the same taste now and then in Chinese chillies you can buy here, but that is a bit of hit and miss. Some are great, most are not. Sorry for the ramble, but do try to dry on a string some time, you will be amazed. The difference is about as big as pork meat and naturally cured Prosciutto. . .

Now, today I had the honour to taste the “Facing Heaven Fingers” or rather the choatian qixiang jiao. These type of chillies go by various names, also “facing heaven 7 stars” and “seven sisters” they are sold as rather hot chillies. In the way the plant is growing, they look similar to the Rawit from Indonesia and the Cheongyang Gochu from Korea.

I think they are as hot as those too, around 50.000-70.000 SHU. The taste has a bit of citrus and fruit. Due to really being naturally dried, or cured almost, you get a bit of a liquorice taste. It is not prominent nor faint but present.
The heat is frontal, you know what you get, and it leaves a bit of a sweet taste. On the way down, it heats the mouth and throat in a pleasant way. But what strikes me most is the sweet aftertaste it has.
This chilli is used in, what I read in Jenny’s cookbook as most commonly used in Sichuan for hotpot. Now I think I am going to use this in a hotpot too, or a Carbonade flamande, hmm choices choices. I think I will keep it to only using 2, hmm, or 3?

Yours sincerely

Bart J. Meijer

Sauce review: Scovilla Excite Mango & Coconut fruit hot sauce.

I am in for a challenge this time, with tasting this sauce, not for the heat but for the taste.
I hate coconut if it is over the top and am not too fond about mango either.
With coconut I do think it is over the top rather fast even if you don’t use too much. Both coconut and the German cuisine can be rather rough or crude maybe, so I am in for something.

I have been a good few times in Germany, and that country is lovely and good fun. Don’t however think you will run over loads of good looking blonds with Lederhosen, you will not.
And if you think it Germany is all about beer, beer bellies and drinking huge Litre glasses of beer? Wrong again.
Germany has got the greatest pilsners in the world, no doubt about that, all super natural and conform their Reinheitsgebot.
Sure they do have beer and wine fests, all for good fun, but you should taste their game meat at the restaurants. . .
Or their salads, their lettuce with a touch of vinegar, onion and and , I need to go to Germany again soon.
Sauce hé, back to sauce. . .

Well, this sauce contains:
Mango, Coconut, Habañero pepper powder, Orange juice, Lemon juice, Passion Fruit juice, Paprika,
Apple vinegar, Coconut essence, Sugar, Starch and Ascorbic acid.
The bottle is a stunning 311ml, normal price 4,99 Euro, so good value for your money.
I especially like the note on the bottom of the label, 100% natural, and: Thanks to Mother Earth

The consistency is great, not too runny, not too thick and it has structure.
Not chunky I mean, it’s got a lovely texture so you feel what you are tasting.
I would say it almost feels like a jelly or jam, in sauce form.
It smells lovely, almost a bit like apricot coconut and well like a fruit bar. Ha I might like this after all.
The taste, hmm.

At start it is a bit syrup like, sweet and sour with sweet being the overtone. Yes it has mango, and it has coconut both not too much, and heat slowly beginning on the middle of the tongue, slowly going down.
At the same time you taste the citrus fruits as an undertone and the apple vinegar does something lovely with the fruit sugars in it. Almost as if you are left with a hot apple syrup taste.
The paprika brings a herb taste in it, together with the habañero peppers. I could swear there is a bit of salt in it to enhance the taste, and there is not.
This is the effect of using great peppers and good paprika, getting a bit of a savoury umami taste.
I like that as a counter to the sweet and sour.
The sauce is not very hot, but has a great bite, 1 out of 5 maybe.

Hihi, I am eating mango and coconut and I love it, this is nuts !
The kids gave it a taste too, and love it, they want to have it on ice-cream.
Now, they are used to a bit of heat, and are giving me the eye that I don’t give them any more.
They simply love it!
1/3rd of the bottle is gone with tasting, and I am 500 words.
So, nice idea from the kids, I am going to use it on ice cream and report about that this week.

O wow, it is on sale I just read at the Scovilla site.
3,99 Euro per bottle, go and get them, maybe take two or try something else too!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

The race for the best chilli, or ?

Hello my good readers,

It has been a long time since I wrote, partially due to pain, and an other part stress. It is hard to stop writing, and even harder to get back to writing. Until I read something that made me mad, pissed off! What better way to get back to writing with a rant ! So with pain in fingers and shoulders, I want to tell you something.

I told you before about the hippy like feel the chilli scene has.
And it has, people share recipe's ideas and seeds.
These chaps help eachother out, if they lost seeds or even lost money or goods.
Sauce companies that were in a storm or in a flood are helped.
Even one chilli lover that lost his house due to a fire, is helped with money.
And money there is in the scene.
Even though we have a crises here and in the US, hot sauce business is booming everywhere. Now don't ask me why, but it is.
Maybe as people want to discover new tastes and new food experiences.
Maybe as people like it more hot than ever.
Sites selling chilli seeds are popping up like crazy everywhere, and not all with the best of products I'm afraid.
Now that comes natural, where there is money there will be good and bad sellers.
But things are starting to smell like fraud and deception maybe.
I hate to say this, but I more and more get an odd feeling really with things that happen.

I have always said the best chillies are not the hottest ones.
True, some of the super hot chillies are great, even if you only use a little, and some are just downright awful.
Didn´t you notice that the hotter the chilli is, the higher the price at a seeds selling store?
If it would be up to me, the best tasting ones would be the most expensive, but they are not.
So,
there is good money in the next Guinness book of record chilli, people want to buy it weather they will eat it or not.
Oddly enough it doesn´t make a lot of difference if it is tasty, the next chilli in the Guinness book of records for being the hottest in the world is worth a load of money.
Ha money, there is the word again that would normally spook a hippy.

Well, there are good few people that are not hippy in this business.
Now I am not saying people should not make a living, but people should not sell a thing based on rumours.
If you say you have the next record holder, show some real proof !
No doubt about it the hottest chilli is the Trinidad Scorpion "Butch T" until proven otherwise !
But rumours oh rumours. . . .
I am not the first person to stumble over these rumours.
Tina Brooks wrote an excellent post about this too.


So I raised my eye brows when last year the new upcoming record holder was presented.
Seeds were sold for silly money, 10 seeds for around 10 dollar, and keeping in mind you can easily get 1000 seeds from one plant. . . .
Need I say more? Well yes, I have plants that gave me well over 5000 seeds in one year.
Anyway, the new Moruga was the hottest, the upcoming record holder. . . .
I tasted 3 varieties, and the Satan Strain Moruga was extremely hot, and extremely tasty !
But I have never seen proof that the normal Moruga Red that would be the hottest, was the hottest.
Seeds were sold in no time though. Next was the Carolina Reaper, the seeds started to be sold a week before the proof would be presented in the US national press released on Monday, August 27 2012.
Needless to say I have neither seen proof or a big national wide press release. All I have seen was a lot of talk about laberatory tests that were never shown, and the rumour that the Guinness Book of Records nowadays asks money for testing a record holder. . . .
I am not contesting that this might be the next record holder fot the hottest chilli, it is just that I want to be sure.
But no worries, the seeds were sold in no-time.

Now I hate it if my friends in hippy chilli land are ripped, and/or if their believe in the hippy like chilli scene is damaged!

The variations in the Carolina Reaper are so big, the so-called stable cross, is anything but stable.
Look at all the pictures, they should be the same chilli!
This is damaging my childish Santa kind of belief in the chilli world, and I am surely not alone in that.
Don't let them fool ye !

Then again, I never wanted to be a hippy anyway !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer
Pictures by courtesy of Jason Richards

Taste review unknown Yellow Crazy Hot,

Now my friend Henry and his friend Beppe from Italy send me one load of chillies you would not believe! They selected the ones I needed to taste, although they have a lot more, they wanted me to taste these ones. So I dug in and as it appears, with the first bite I made a mistake.
Now excuse me please, but I did get a little excited unpacking, and got punished. I unpacked one, bright yellow and a little orange, not pointy but irregular in a funny way.

The paper next to it said Cornetto Calabrese, so not knowing it I was taking good care but took a rather large piece from in between the seed lists. I felt like a chilli rookie again, man that pepper had me sing. Good grief it was hot, but tasty never the less, but boy did I sing. So I asked Henry if they always are that hot. Well then I understood I need to learn to speak and write Italian. Who needs Latin?

So, I thought I’d better taste on, I will get it later. The scent of this chilli is great, perfumy chinense, with fruits and sweets. The chinense part that sometimes has an irritating overtone in both smell and taste is not there, it is in balance. So tasting again, but more, much more careful. Tastng and smelling I get a scent and taste from Tea Rose, perfume. In the middle there is no sweets, no paprika but fruits and a bit of metal like bleeding. You get that in times if you eat superhot chillies like these. Rinse with milk and get back at it, smaller bits I take. In the tip of it I find a bit of sweet and tastes like pineapple. A little piece from the middle does give me a bit of a bitter, but not irritating as such, and again the tea rose and the perfumy chinense. At the top however I get apricot and tea rose as well as some paprika taste. This is one weird lovable chilli that is extremely hot, far hotter than a Fatalii.

So again I have a chat with Henry from Italy, asking what it is. In the end I show him the picture and the label that I thought belonged together. “Ah” Henry says “that is a Bhut Jolokia Yellow, and the best he has selected over more than 10 years”. Every time he only takes seeds from the plant he likes best, and sure did one great job. This my good readers is one chilli to respect, not feared, but used in little bits if you don’t want to be scorched. But this is a chilli that makes me think of a great Chili con Carne, that is subtle on the herbs. Good grief Beppe, I am so digging in the next one tomorrow. Thank you ever soo much, this is a superhot chilli I love !!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J Meijer

Taste review: Parvifolium mini mini

Last year I was send some seeds from Lee, the founder of Wildchilli.eu.
One of them was the "Parvifolium mini mini" It even became one of the biggest plants I had this year.

Lee already warn me it would take a long time to ripen them, and he was right!
For more than months the fruits stayed green, and with winter and frost coming, I had to dig it out and take it inside.
Even inside, with warmer conditions, it didn't ripen. So today I decided to taste a green one.
The fruits of the Parvifolium mini mini are very small like the name already did suggest.

Now to the taste:
First (like you can expect from a green chilli) the typical green bell-pepper taste,
Followed by a nice fresh citrus, wow its just like a ripe lemon!
Then the heat kicks in, very shape sting in my tongue who also disappears rather quick, leaving me with a little taste like lemongrass.
A itchy feeling in my nose made me blow it..and then it started: This one burns in your nose!
The burning feeling you get under your nose when you have a cold and have to blow it a lot.....times ten!


Parvifolium mini mini, a little,citrus tasting, bugger, wonder how it will taste when ripe!

Aldo

Taste report for Rocoto de Seda

It's Rocoto season!

After waiting for more than two full months my Rocoto de Seda finally turned to beautiful jellow.
Today I harvested the first one and couldn't wait tasting it.

The inside contains three "chambers" with large black seeds (black seeds are typical pubescens).

Carefully i put a piece in my mouth. HMMMM! Nice sweet like raisins, no not those sticky black things from the red box but raisins that are not ruined by sulfuring them.
(who invented the sulfuring? why ruin the lovely tast raisins have?)
I even tasted some banana.
After a few seconds the heat kicks in, aw! to much for me!
With the juices the heat spreads quick over my, lips, mouth, throat and stomach, everywhere.







Inspired by the raisin like taste I took what was over from the fruit, cut some raisins, added a little water and sugar and as finish some lemon juice.
Cooked it slowly for a few minutes. The rocoto and raisins did match indeed..its a sort of hot baklava...maybe try hot apple pie next time












Bart, thank you for letting me write on your blog!
Aldo

Taste review Rocoto mini red

After my last Rocoto, I expected this to be a mild chilli without a really strong taste. . .
Well, think again. . . Surprises surprises, what a lovely chilli!

First, this plant again has amazing flowers, and them hairy leaves and stem.
This plant however does not grow like mad, its gets flowers, drops a few, and gets fruit.
It really is much faster than the other ones. and stays within 60-70 cm wide ( approx 2 foot )
But then the ripening, it takes ages and makes you wonder if anything is wrong. And no, there is not.
These plants are really a bit odd you know, they hate full sun, and like a bit of shade. Not too much shade, but a bit. Full sun all day is a no no. So if you have a spot where you don't want to place chillies as it is a bit in the shade, this is the place for a Rocoto plant.

Now this one is hot, really hot, but not as hot that you can not get the taste. Again this watery hot is strange, take a little bite and your mouth is watering and hot all over in seconds. The taste is odd and lovely, makes me think of a wild chilli. Not a really strong taste, but certainly 3 steps up from the Giant red Rocoto. It makes me think of a Roma tomato, soft and almost creamy. Then it starts giving more and more tastes. Its got both tomato and apple taste in it, and a general taste of fruits. But that taste is almost contradicted with herbs and the taste of berries. It is slightly sour, making me think of that tomato I said before, but also of Juniper berry with the slight bitter it has.

In short a fantastic Rocoto that you can grow in a pot, with such good flowers and a very complex taste. Now mind, it is not a superhot, but the heat builds if you cook it. And due to its instant spreading in the mouth of the heat, your fist bite rocks !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review the Chocolate Cherry chilli

This is one stunning chilli, and odd. This is a cherry chilli that grows upright, not hanging, still it is an annuum, so direct family from the paprika. This chilli is from Hungarian origin, and is used in pickles and fresh. Weird as I have never seen a cherry chilli grow up, and looking cute and this chilli has a real chocolate colour. It is not super seedy, in the inside it really looks like a mini paprika, and is very easy to clean,
All in all the appearance of this plant and its fruits, it makes soo much advertisement for itself that I was sure they would taste like. . . . . .  not so good as they look.

However, the taste is stunning, overwhelming. Not its heat. It took me some time to get how to describe this chilli. It has a very deep and dark paprika taste, so would looks deceive me, no it really has that. It has a very rich and herbs like paprika taste, very strong without the bitter, and the heat of half a peppadew or a thrird of that from a Satan's kiss. Then after eating half and chewing it for about 20 seconds it starts to build a sweet taste like that from light roasted malt before brewing, or like that from chewing wheat in the field. You know for making chewing gum from wheat, what we did like kids on vacation.

Now how can I explain the deep and dark paprika taste? It has at least the taste of 3 times a paprika, but different. You know if you have tasted the yellow and the red bell pepper, and maybe a roasting pepper that is much darker? Well, if there would be a next step, like a black paprika, this is what it would taste like. That and just a lovely mild heat, makes this one stunning cherry chilli !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review C. Pubescens "Rocoto Manzano Grande"

Some of you must have gotten tired after reading the title, that name is one mouthful!
The Capsicum pubescens is one of the oddest chilli families there is, I think. The name pubescens means hairy, not that the chillies are, the plant is hairy. These chillies also are called tree chillies, and are known to get over 15 years old, and as big as trees. These pubescens or Rocoto chilli plants are not grown a lot by commercial growers, and that always made me wonder.

Rocoto or pubescens chilli plants are a bit hard to grow, or at least to get them to fruit. As they really are no annual plants, the second year they will do much better. Now that is a bit hard as the can handle a very mild frost a bit, but with our normal winters they will die. So you have to overwinter them in the house. There is a trick to have them carry fruit, and that is to prune them. Cut the end of a branch when it has a good couple of flowers. What is also done, to get the fruits to colour faster, is binding the branches up, so the fruits will get more sun.

Now the plants are odd and beautiful, and some grow to be huge in one year, they start to flower early, but only later on they will get fruits. The flowers are stunning to say the least, purple and purple with white, almost bell like. I have enjoyed growing these plants, for their appearance only, what a stunning plant!
The fruits are odd too, they are huge compared to other chillies and have black seeds. This is stunning, think about a Sambal with black seeds! The burn off the fruit is different too, the heat spreads like thin oil on water, and will be all over your mouth in no time. The burn in these chillies are overall different, and people react on them in a different way. Some say they are much hotter, some say the burn is different, or both.

The structure of the fruit also is different, both in build as in mouth feel. Now as this actually is a taste report, I will get in to the the taste and mouth feel. The skin is less thick and easier to bite through, the flesh is less crunchy and much thicker than any chilli I know. Although the flesh is less crunchy, it isn't unpleasant, and has the mouth feel of a nectarine almost. It is very succulent and moist, and feels fatty when you chew it, even your mouth feels like eating something with fat.

Mind, this is a little one !

Now this one, the Rocoto Manzano Grande or Giant Red Rocoto is not very hot, I almost think it is rather to the mild side. However if you cook with it, it feels like it is getting hotter, weird. The taste is a bit like cucumber, and some paprika, not really sweet. If you want to turn in into a pepper paste, almost everything can be used, if you take the seeds out. The fruit doesn't really have ribs or seedlists, but has walls dividing it, with a sort of heart on top. Everything is soft in it, even the heart. Fresh eaten in a salad, I would suggest using it with some black pepper and some salt, nothing more. Traditionally they are eaten stuffed and boiled, or steamed with the stuffing in it. If you have a hotter version, the traditional way to get them milder is to take the inners out, and fill them with milk. Leave overnight and use the next day. Works like a charm !

To the experts, the red Rocoto's are the least tasty ones, with a few exceptions. So the other Rocoto's coming up are really a step up, or more ! Exciting !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review, Ciliegia Piccante or Baccio de Satana (Satan’s Kiss)

This Italian Heirloom variety was on my “need to have” list last year, one with a growing popularity in the Netherlands. So, got it and grew it. I do have to say, the promise of not too hot, and the words Satan’s kiss triggered to buy them too. Just would love to have a funny little cherry chilli with a bit of a kick.

Beautiful pant and jolly great show and all, but this is not a candy. The first time I bit one in half, I did everything but sing. Good grief, this one lovely looking chilli has a stingy heat and really is more than mild. So I tried this chilli over and over again to get what is so special about them. And I am afraid to say, if found nothing special in them taste wise. It is just your regular boring chilli, that looks superb.

We have tried them with peanut butter filled, with cream cheese, and with anchovies making them a load better. But they are small and full off seeds, so it does take a bit of trouble to be able to use them. I for one will not grow them again for tastes, but will grow them for keeping this heirloom alive. If you do have the patience for cleaning the seeds out, I bet they are wonderful in a pickle or brine. Do use a good herbs and a good bit of garlic and salt to get them some flavour.

It is a stunning looking chilli with a good bit of heat but not a special taste.

Sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

I had a dream

Hot is not a taste, and it is not all what chillies are about.
The constant hammering about hot hotter hottest, keeps a lot off people away from chillies.
And some people just don't seem to get this. Growers, bloggers and seeds sellers keep hammering on the heat.
People do not want pain, but excitement both in taste and experience. That is what a chilli should be, and has been in the past, in history.

So I had a dream, I wanted to get some taste to the world of chilli.
Now that sounds presumptuous, but I started all this, getting sick of all the hot hotter hottest chilli.
Really, if you ask how a chilli tastes, the answer normally is: Hot, hotter or hottest. Now excuse me, but that has little to do with taste, it is only one aspect. Have you ever given website selling chilli seeds a good look? Did you ever see one with a satisfying taste report to it?

So I had a dream, to taste as many chillies that I can, so if people would ask, they can put a real taste report on their sites.
Now I am working myself through chilli after chilli, and some I had to taste another time again. Had a cold 2 times, so was not able to taste. Still I did a good bunch and writing down as much as possible, some 30 taste reports pending.

Then being almost winter and so, I started to look at the "need to taste" list for next year. This year I had 110 varieties, so what am I going to do this coming season? Looking over varieties, it started to dawn on me, it will be hard to succeed. There are around 4500 varieties, I tasted some 180 this year, getting send from all over the world. So if I get to taste 200 next year, it will take me 22,5 years to taste them all. Ok, so why was I rushing? Can I keep this dream for the next 22 odd years?
So after this epiphany about tasting, I took a 4 days break from tasting, made a good picture while checking seeds with an antique loupe..

About good taste:
Video reviews do soo seldom get my and keep my attention. Low quality with loads of background noise, and nothing else to show for. A lot of them are utter useless, not describing any taste, or have like a 5 minute trailer and 1 minute or so with something that might say something about taste. There are also video's on Youtube about most silly tricks like sticking chilli powder up your nose. Or even tasteless video's about challenges eating 10 chillies, where just one would be enough to spice up a whole cow, with throwing up and all.
Now subscribe to my youtube channel? No! Are you serious ?
Or worse, former car sellers selling the next worse chilli, talking it to heaven with a mouth full of chilli, mentioning certain websites that sell them over and over again. Who is going to believe that? Booho I want to see taste !

So I made 2 episodes of chilli video reviews, that are out of this world silly! I tried to copy the Young Ones from the BBC a bit. Soooo:  Subscribe to my channel !

Really subscribe to my channel !

I mentioned a few video reviewers that I did like in a former post, but I have to tell you it was a huge relief to get pointed out a week ago to the video reviews of Tmudder, and Volker Berlin together with Felix from Pfefferhaus.de
These guys do have taste, and thank God for good video reviews. Rant is over, and I will get back to tasting again soon, please do excuse me for the dip I had.

Yours sincerely

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review Monkey Face chilli

The Monkey face chilli was a medium hot chilli everybody talked about last years, so it was a need to have chilli for me. It was a bit of a slow starter, but that might have been me. I was sort off sold, when I heard it would be a great base chilli for sauces, so well a had to have. Now the plant has a lovely form, grows a bit like a tree. I like that, but I am not in this for looks, I want taste.
It is supposed to have sort of a Monkey Face in it, and I did see a few good photographs, but I didn't really get a good one. So not really a monkey face. Still the somewhat odd form and looks make it to be a great looking odd chilli. Sure I do like a good looking chilli, but I love to have a good taste as well. Now I heard that it was a good one to over-winterer as well, now that were all the pro's known to me.

So I had it grow for a year and last month I had one to taste. It taste is a bit complex, and I had to taste a few before I got it. The heat is direct, no surprises no build, no. You know what you are eating the first bite, so that is good to work with.
Basically it has sweet, a touch of bitter some herbs, fruit, and a wood like tone. Some say it would taste like mango, but then I would rather say a touch of pineapple as it has that wood tone as well. In my terms I would say, it has the sweets of a yellow bell pepper, the pleasant light bitter a red bell pepper has, and some herb with a wood like tone. Herbs between Coriander seeds or Turmeric. It is odd, this is a complex chilli with both fruits and herbs, lovely indeed. Now at the time I don't really know what to combine it with, so I left them to dry.

Dried they are a different ballpark, whole new story indeed. If you have them sundried or very slow natural ripened, they are out of this world !
They will get the sweet taste of sundried tomatoes, the sweet will also start to top over to the liquorice taste that you get in slow natural ripened chillies. The taste will stay complex and lovely and make you wonder what it is you are tasting. Really stunning, like this they can stand on their own making a great powder of flakes, or add them to your table salt grinder. The pleasant taste will linger on for at least 10 minutes, just lovely.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Wild Chillies, chillies gone wild?

Wild chillies, chillies gone wild?

I have rambled a bit before about rather tasteless chillies.

And in fact, there are more than a few rather tasteless chillies, if you ask me.

Especially if you have been surprised with really good chillies that have a certain herbiness or flavour that amaze you.

Sure there is the difference between water grown chillies "hydrophonies", and the ones that have had a real life in soil. I love organic greens for sure, for they have much more flavour.

So as they are way too expensive for me, I grow them myself now.

In the years, since I moved out with my parents, I learned to cook and appreciate flavours.

My mom was not the best cook mind, so I had to learn from scratch.

Hard in the start, but the best way to learn I’d say.

But having others eat my food, and done more than a few taste sessions for wine, I learned that I have more than just great palate.

Capsicum Eximinum flower.

So I boasted to one of the lads at www.wildchilli.eu that I have great palate and would love to taste wild chillies.

That after I have noticed that none had a description of taste, and nobody did really seemed to know how they tasted. . . .

So I was challenged, and I do have to say I was surprised about the taste.

Really, in the wild chillies you can find the mother of tastes for all chillies and peppers.

First off, I got 3 sorts to taste, and wrote about it in a post.
A question of taste!! The readers loved it, and I loved tasting them.

I got loads of readers there, and got more and more chillies to taste.

Dried berries I had to taste, minute things, with loads of taste that surprised me.

I am picking 2 to describe and will tell you more about others in posts to come.

First off, was one that sounded great, the Capsicum galapagoense.

A species endemic to the Galapagos Islands, doesn’t that sound posh?

First taste is sweet and lovely, and a fruit like..
I would say bell pepper like, without the bitterness?
I loved it, so I licked a little piece from my hand, but it got stuck to my upper lip.
Got just a bit of direct heat but not sure about the taste, so I popped in another with it. . . .
Licked my lips as well, still not feeling any heat.

Definitely sweet bell pepper, the yellow one, even though this berry is red.

Sweet and lovely without the bitterness, I loved it !
The heat started building a bit after the taste faded out, and kept on building.
Not in the nose at all, just tongue and throat
Good grief, I really started sweating, having a real heavy reaction.
My lips started burning hard, and so did my mouth.

My ears even felt like I was going deaf or coming down from high altitude.

They started ringing even.
After 10 minutes the heat was calming down, also on the lips, still sweating though.
I hate this one, for having this fierce afterbite, and yes I am bitten by this one.
This one is weird !
20 minutes now, and the heat is almost gone and I have come to hate this one.

I have had this before with certain chillies, but for the life off me I would not know which one.

Chris Fowler heard of my quest to find the mother of tastes. So he was so kind as to send me a first timer.

He sent me a really fresh wild chilli, a Capsicum Eximium. An end of season fresh, Eximinum, perfectly round about 4 mm, dark red.

I opened it with a knife, and there was only one seed in it.
But this berry was very fleshy, thick skinned, and really looked like a berry.
Not a lot of air or open space, just like a blueberry or fox berry.

So, let’s go, my first fresh wild chilli ever !
I hoped to get some taste with this ini mini berry.
First taste was sweet, and then whammaaa the heat kicked in.
Most of the heat faded really really fast, weird.
As soon as the heat started to vanish ( in seconds really ) my mouth was able to taste.
A crazy sensation of a total overload in tastes, so hard to describe really.
20 or 50 times as much taste as the dried one for sure!

So I was sitting there with this mouth full, or more, with taste from this tiny berry in utter amazement really.
Just mumbling and being amazed, I sat there.
So my wife asks: Are you all-right luv, or are you burning away?
I just nodded.

After 5 minutes the taste slowly died, or I got used to it.

Sweet, fruity like apple maybe, berries, liquorice, almost overblown by the other tastes.

Definitely salt or umami as an after taste, broth like.

The only way I can explain how much taste, and how blown away I was, is this.
If one imagines an astronaut’s pill with everything in it, it is this berry.
In one pill the taste of:
5 apples
a handful of berries,
a small piece of Liquorice,
a pinch of salt
and some meat essence.

Crazy, so much taste!
I will never eat one again for fun, but could imagine me putting just one in a glass of tomato juice ( horrid stuff )
That mini berry, just one, would make tomato juice more than drinkable.

Now, seeds for wild chillies are not widely available.

Then again, I told you about the hippy like share culture amongst chilli lovers.
If you join a forum or a facebook group for chillies, share and re-share.

Do ask; maybe someone loves the wild chilli as much as I do, and shares.

Yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer

Courtesy to Chris Fowler  for the images!