Taste report, Caloro, a stunning medium to mild chilli.

Tasting the Capsicum Annuum “Caloro” or should I stop with the scientific gibberish
No I should not.
I won’t bug you too much with it, but a chef should know, and stay at home chef as well. It is much easier to know, so you can categorise it a bit.
So it is an Annuum making it closely related to the Bell Pepper, Jalapeños and Czechoslovakian Black.
This baby has the looks, the smell and the taste of one great pepper, but it is a chilli. She is one sweet sixteen with a temperament that will make you want her. But behold, she bites if you take her the wrong way.

The form is a bit of a jalapeños at first, but gets longer. It turns from green to a lovely yellow, and stays yellow a long time, then at the end it turns to a lovely and bright red. The plants can grow to about 60-90 cm (2-3 foot) and have a stunning high yield. If the first gets red, pick it immediately, if you do that after the first couple red ones you picked it will start to flower again. It looks a bit like the Hot Banana, but at some point it will have a few reds per day between the yellow ones. Yeah I like the looks of it.

Now don’t let the looks fool you, it is a mild to medium chilli, rating from 1000 to 5000 scoville heat units. So it does have some good heat. The smell when you cut it open is stunning, it is sweet and has good herbs. Smelling it does remind me to Jerusalem artichoke a bit along the smell of the herbs, or fatty bacon baked. The taste is sweet, lush, juicy and succulent like a great snack pepper, tasting of a sweet bell pepper and lemonade. This is one fruity lovely chilli, a good snack for a hothead and for people that are not used to superhot it is lovely in salads. If you take out the seed lists totally, it is lovely and mild, but you could just chop one in full, to put it in a Bell Pepper soup. This will give it just that bit of a kick. I have seeds available for this one, if you would like to give them a try.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Cumari se Crescente

I got this chilli from Dilly's Chilis Seed Co in the US to write a report about. In fact I got a good handful off 2 different ones all the way from the US to taste and write about. Now travelling half the world didn’t affect them, isn’t that cool?

the Cumari is below the knife

One of them was a bit of a disappointment, taste wise, but a stunning looker called the Capezolli di Skimmia. But this one is superb. It is a dead ringer for the Aribibi Gusano, but deep yellow. The Aribibi has one flower per axil and this Cumari with 3-5 flowers per axil. So it will give you more chillies, and maybe even better looks. This chilli grows up, erect so to say, hihi.
So I had to taste it and would not make the same mistake with this one as I did with the Aribibi, so I only tasted the very tip of it.

This going to be one short taste report for once, get it, you need this one as bad as you need the Aribibi Gusano.

top Cumari, bottom Aribibi

The taste to the Cumari se Crescente is close as I said, but more subtle. It has the chinense taste I talked about, a hint of citrus and the same heat. If you think the Aribibi is over the top, this is a step down in taste. Odd thing maybe, but I think these will combine with chocolate very well.
Handy little bugger to use, as it is easy to dose in a meal. Never eat a handful though, unless you are Ted Barrus !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Aribibi Gusano

This worm like chilli has been one of the oddest ones I have seen last year. I got this chilli from a friend of mine in Holland as a must taste chilli, and a must see chilli.
He said the tip of it one could eat without a problem getting the full array of tastes it has. Now that is a greatly said but hard to define thing, because how long is the tip of it? This chilli has no tip, but a sort of like butt if anything. Then again its creamy yellowy appearance does make me wonder how dangerous this could be. So I bit the first bit of the top off, and it was great and really a mouth full of tastes. My son had one to, and did the same, no burn. So we both looked like, well how hot can it be and took another bite. . . . . .

So, this Aribibi Gusano is an odd pepper or chilli, weirdest form, creamy white to yellowish like when it is ripe. More strange, it has a list of possible names about an arm long. Scientifically we are talking about the Capsicum chinense Jacquin cv. 'Aribibi Gusano' but it is also known as Aribibi, Aribibi Gusano, Aji Gusanito, Habanero Aribibi Gusano, Aribibi Gusanito, Caterpillar Pepper, Aribibi Caterpillar, Arivivi Gusano and last but not least Turtle Claw. Now this chilli is supposed to be a chinense, but is also called a Frutescens or a Frutescens / Chinense cross. Now, have I lost you? Well only good as that is how I felt after doing a bit of extra research.

Now to make some clear, chinense is a part of the Capsicum family right? So all chillies are from the Capsicum family, and all peppers are too. The Peppers are from the part of the family called Annuum, so are called Capsicum Annuum. For instance you have the Cayenne chilli, scientifically it should be called Capsicum annuum L. “Cayenne” This scientific stuff would not seem important and sounds like jibberish but it is important. Most people like Annuum chillies and they are among the most used ones in the western world. The Chinense chillies are the group of chillies that bring the hottest ones in the world and have a specific taste that you that you may or may not like. People also call it the Habañero taste, but that isn’t really true. My wife doesn’t like the chinense taste in superhots and does like Habañero, and she is picky. . .

Sorry, this was a taste report?

Well, after the first bite, the second bite is overpowering to say the least. It had me and my son running for the milk and peanut butter. This chilli is hot, 150 K scoville easy, but has a matching taste to come with it for sure. It is very perfumy and very rich in taste. If you cut one open and leave it for half an hour, you will smell it throughout the house. It has a lot citrus and sweet wood like a taste that makes you remind of vanilla. The undertone taste that is in the Chocolate Habañero that makes it lovely is the upper tone in the Aribibi Gusano. It is very strong with its Chinense taste and scent, which you will find in the super-hot chillies. This makes this chilli about the most perfect chilli for people that like the taste of the superhots but do not want to go superhot with their food. Due to its size you can dose it very well. I pop 2-3 Aribibi Gusano in 1.5 Kg of Chili con Carne, and 5 minutes later my neighbour calls me he smelled it and if he can have dinner with us! Yes, all in all a chilli that deserves to be in the top 10 for sure !! I do have seeds available, so you can try them too!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Pruning a chilli plant for overwintering !

So, less text this time.
How to prepare a plant for overwintering in the house with normal heat and light.

This is the plant that started leaning and hat some bad spots, too moist and too cold.
So before it is too late, I will have to prune and re pot it.

The first spots started due to a very light night frost.

The rough cutting I do with pruning shears, first the bad spots about 10 cm over to the good branches.

Then I take a knife to do the fine trimming. The branches are cut as far that the main stem is just about not damaged. The round breast like form around the place where the branch comes out, has got wound healing tissue in it and will grow over the cut in no-time.

This is how it looks after carefully cutting it close to the stem.

The ground can be shaken or rinsed out of the rooting system, all brown or mushy looking roots need to be cut out. Percentage wise you can cut as much roots as you did branches.

In the new pot you can add some manure worms, to eat rotten parts from the roots and hold back mould.
The worms will also feed the plant, and the plant will smell different keeping aphids away.

This is how it looks after cutting and pruning. The 2 stems will make 2 nice tree forms if I cut the branches at the bottom next year.

The rest of the good branches hung up to ripen off the chillies, and the dropped chillies with banana in the fruit basket.!

hoped you liked the tips,

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

End of season growing chillies

So it is the end of season hé. Now all chili growers go in Hibernation or depressed. The last fruits are staying green and will slowly go bad on the plants, while the plants wait for frost to bring their poor lives to their sorry end.
Nothing is more wrong. For the last 6 months we had to stick to our choices, and had to wait if the result was good, and the tastes on top. So the brains started working harder and harder, opinions changed about chillies. Colleague growers are asked for opinions, even fruits are exchanged between them and new ideas have formed.

The last fruits are picked if the plants are out in the open, even the green ones. Greenhouses and polytunnels are given a bit of extra heat with paraffin heaters. And plants can be stressed to ripen off earlier. Now this I did get a load of questions about.

So

If all chillies look fully grown but won't change colour, pick a few. The plant will get stressed to ripen off the others. ( That is why peppers are sold green, not to waste them like garbage )
Give the plant far less water, the plant will get stressed to . . . . Cut a few branches off, the plant will get. . . Put the green fruits in a basket or a sack with banana’s and they will ripen off very fast due to the ethylene given off by the banana’s.

The plant has a hormone system, that is set to grow, to flower and to ripen. If a plant is loosing green peppers, or water, the plant will start to hurry to produce seeds. So, if the chillies are getting ripened, pick em as soon as they are having colour. If all chillies are picked the plant goes into grow mode again

Can you over-winter plants? What to do with unripe fruits, when do I start seeding etc etc.
Well yes, you can over-winter plants in 2 ways. You can cut them back to the bear branches, get the soil out of the roots and prune the roots then replant them in pots with new soil to keep. If you keep them cool and a little moist they will hardly grow, but will not die. You can re-pot the plants prune the roots a bit and put them under artificial lights like LED panels or fluorescent tubes and give them 14 hours of light a day. You can even get the plants to grow well in a windowsill, and if it is at the sunny side of the house you will not have to give extra light. But do not leave ripe chillies in the plant or it will die.
Really, I had a plant from Korea here that gave 80 fruits the first summer, and I put it in the windowsill. In January it started to flower like mad, put water in a pot on the convector and it did not drop a flower. In February I rinsed the soil out of the roots, cut some old roots and gave it new soil. In April I had the first fruits and stopped counting at 200.

If you don’t over-winter your plants, you can cut off the branches that carry fruit and hang them upside down, or you can uproot it, and hang it upside down in a warm and light room, plant goes into survival mode and force ripens the chilies. You can even make cuttings to grow for next year, or seeds from the last fruits and seed them. A seed from a fresh fruit will grow very very fast.

For me now my head is buzzing, what am I going to grow next year? How can I help you to grow the best and tastiest chillies. How I do go about things writing. What recipes to make with the last chillies or the frozen ones later. I still have to taste about some 40 chillies and describe them, I am soo glad winter is coming. Get the time to write, and prepare myself and you for the next season, and get some great chillies !!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Habanero Hot Lemon

Again a chilli I got from Volker in Berlin, the Habanero Hot Lemon, a stunning looking chilli. Lovely smooth and bright yellow skin, and I was told it is a heavy producer. Unfortunately, I forgot to make a picture when I had cut it, but it does not have a load of seeds in it. This is however one of the oddest Habañero’s I have ever seen. It is almost translucent and I find I even have trouble photographing it. Doesn´t it look superb?

Photo by courtesy from Volker 

With everybody talking to fear the tail I slit along the seed lists to get some taste without scorching. This time I succeeded and got a good bit of a bite without too much heat in it. I didn’t really taste any lemon, but a light and good habanero taste that is not at all over the top. You know with chocolate Habañero you get this overwhelming taste and smell really to fit a the heat it has. Now this overwhelming smell is lacking with this one. It is more subtle, this is a well-balanced chilli with an aroma to go with it. It has a bit of a bitter that is complementing the Habañero taste, almost no sweets in it, lovely herbs and almost totally lacking of Paprika or Bell Pepper tastes.

Some time ago I wrote about slowly getting fed up with the Habañero taste, and this one I think is lovely. It is hot mind, very hot for a habanero, but still I can get the subtlety of it and enjoy it. It is not as much perfumy, just has got a good and fruity smell.

This variety seems only available in Germany by semillas.de so I was kind of keen to taste it. I have seen several around and looked at the site from semillas, still these look a bit different.
I should have asked, but as it seems Volker did send me this one to get scared, or enjoy the beauty. It is really one amazing chilli.

Now I left half of it to dry and get the seeds out, then I tasted this bit again. Now that is stunning, dried it has some sweets to it, and the herbs sort of have matured to a deep lush and lovely taste. There is still that fruity tone to it and did not lose the subtlety, but the herbs in the taste are just more lovely and complemented with some sweets.
This is really a stunner to dry in my opinion and add to a milder chilli to make a great powder. Maybe it would be nice to add to Cayenne powder to get some real taste and make the powder sort of orange and a bit stronger in heat. I love it and it is one for my growing list for next year !
Thanks again Volker ! Great to see your new blog online!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Capezzoli di Scimmia

The Capezzoli di Scimmia is a little chilli that looks very nice, it is tiny but it sure has the looks! When I got them from Dilly I had to bite it, and I was soo sorry. Darn this is a hot one ! Totally overblown by its heat, I did not taste a thing, so I left it for a while. Next day I took my crafting knife to it and tried to cut a mild piece out of it and get some taste, this chilli really is hot. I didn’t really get some taste out so I cheated. Sure I did get some fruits and a little sweet, a bit like a piri piri chilli, but not much more. So yeah, I cheated and looked it up.

This chilli has got a good bit of history about it. It has been developed by Dr. Mario Dadomo, director of the Azienda Agraria Sperimentale Stuard an experimental garden in Italy. Well garden, it is a bit larger than that. It is an experimental institute working with a lot more than just chillies, but tomatoes and other crops as well. Research at the Azienda Agraria Sperimentale Stuard covers fertilization, crop rotation, integrated pest management, protection and balance of nutrients in the soil as well as organic cultivation. He worked with over 1200 varieties of Capsicum and is not only developing new varieties, he tries to preserve, maintain, catalogue and archive the Italian Heirloom varieties of chili. Midsummer he has 20.000 to 30.000 chilli plants in his garden, now that is talking hot isn’t it?

Now, after having yet another taste, and getting little out than just a bit of fruitiness, I had it. I tried to get in contact with the good Doctor, and I didn’t get through. Darn ! So I looked at the name again and it means monkey nipple, excuse me?
Now I really have got the feel that the good Doctor is pulling my leg, a chilli called monkey nipple and it is bleeding hot. This really makes no sense, as I do not get the feel of a mother nursing tasting this chilli. Yeah ok the form looks sort of like it.

Anyways, this chilli is hot, very hot. Thank you Dilly's Chilis Seeds for sending these all over from the US!
This really had me challenged, and had a great time tasting it. It is hot, does not have a matching taste to go with the heat. So I would not take this one and grow it for culinary reasons, but just for the fun of it.
It is an excellent looking chilli though, and very easy if you want to spike a meal a good bit. Pop in one and you will be surprised, pop in 2 and you will get hot, pop in 3 and you will be scared. Respect to this mini monkey tit!

Next one coming is a stunner, keep you posted!

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer