30/

Biquinho (chinense)

This is a famous pepper in Brazil. They’re supposed to be sweet like candy with mild heat and are often pickled. My red ones were a casualty of cross pollination and turned out to be blazingly hot and tasted like battery acid. The salmao were fine.

Fresh: sweetish, slightly berry (like candy raspberry) with mild chinense flavor, lower heat than jalapeño.

Dried: tastes like sweetish orange peel and chinense flavor disappears in drying process…

28/

Ají panca (chinense)

Staple pepper in Peruvian cooking.

Fresh: cucumber, lettuce. It begins to dry on the plant and can air dry at room temp. No chinense flavor.

Dried: best tasting dried, it’s sort of reminds me of tamarind-date chutney if you take away 99% of the tartness. After taste of cucumber water. Almost heatless, warm, not biting.

Cultivation: very tall plant, needs staking, doesn’t produce a lot, and is very cold sensitive…

26/

Ají jobito

Not sure if this is a true jobito bc other seeds in the pack grew to be red scotch bonnets. The man who originally exported them from Venezuela in a fundraiser (2015) described them as fruity, intensely flavored with some heat. I started these rather late and the peppers matured in the fall so it’s also possible cool weather affected their taste.

Fresh: sweetish, almond-y, very faint mushroom/cooked squash aroma. Barely noticeable chinense flavor is isolated in the placenta…