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chinense Naga musings - Jolokia, Dorset, Morich etc

Pappy McPepper

Pappy McPepper

This seems to be a fairly confusing area. Mark's Naga Morich (or Moresh) pods are orange:

naga_morich.jpg


... but the (Morich-derived?) Naga Dorset goes red:

dorset_20naga.jpg


But then, if you look into the Jolokia varieties you see both long, thin pods named "Jolokia" as well as plants that look exactly (to my novice eyes) like Dorset Naga.

Examples -->

This is what the Indians/Bangladeshis call Naga Jolokia or "Bih Jolokia" (pics too big to post here):
http://www.hotternell.com/Jolokia.JPG
http://www.hotternell.com/Jolokia4.JPG

What westerners think is naga jolokia:
371_22.jpg


Confusing?
 
The Dorset Naga , Naga Morich (Moresh or Morrich) and Bih Jolokia are VERY VERY SIMILAR. The confusion at the moment is the former seems to mature to red, the later two dark orange. It terms of pod shape, wall thickness, calyx length, plant size and heat etc etc their is little (if anything) to chose between them as they are all variants of the same variety.

Don't get these confused with Naga Jolokia (also called Tezpur or PC-1)- these are completely different and a very poor relation in my view. For starters they are more cayenne like and if you ask anyone who has grown them, they do not live up to the hype.

Mark
 
Mark, the pepper that some people call "jolokia" (long, thin, cayenne-like) is NOT naga jolokia aka Bih Jolokia. Naga is a region (Nagaland) and jolokia just means "pepper". Study the wikipedia page on that pepper (see link above). Check all links on that page.

The real Naga Jolokia seem to be the grandaddy of Dorset, Morich, and more!
 
I am (used to be???) a contributor to Wikipedia and although it is a great resource, I wouldn't exactly put too much store in what you find printed there. They are more interested in the fact that the contributors can show an online source for their information than they are interested in that source's information being factual.

At least they've finally started making people use the 15,000,000 number for maximum SHUS. ;) THAT was no small feat, let me tell you.

T
 
I have some real problems with the way the Indian claims of high Scoville scores for naga jolokia have been handled in the West, with suggestions of dishonesty and fraud. It smacks of racism to me. Michael and Joy Michaud's peppers are from the same region, are probably even the same peppers, and nobody is calling them liars, perhaps because they speak English well and have white skins (although the tests they had done, by white people, also lent them credibility). ;)
 
Pappy McPepper said:
I have some real problems with the way the Indian claims of high Scoville scores for naga jolokia have been handled in the West, with suggestions of dishonesty and fraud. It smacks of racism to me. Michael and Joy Michaud's peppers are from the same region, are probably even the same peppers, and nobody is calling them liars, perhaps because they speak English well and have white skins (although the tests they had done, by white people, also lent them credibility). :(
Click to expand...


This, of course, begs the question:"So, because the Indians have brown skins, they must be right because we're racists...?"

The reason the Naga Jalokia information is discounted is because it has failed the primary scientific test: consistency of results from many recognized testing labs.
 
willard3 said:
The reason the Naga Jalokia information is discounted is because it has failed the primary scientific test: consistency of results from many recognized testing labs.
Click to expand...

I think cap concentration is too low to be consistant. Taking a page from wine training I'd guess that something that low will vary from plant to plant, side of the field to side of the field.

This gives me an idea...hmmm...a couple of ideas...........back to the lab!!
 
Willard3, I suggest you review the various websites purporting to "debunk" the Indian tests. They debunk the results on the flimsiest of grounds, such as phone calls that weren't returned, and methodology that didn't seem quite right by our standards, etc. In other words, if you don't play by our western game, follow our business and paper-publishing model, respond to our calls, you're probably a cheat.

Now the fact that gives the lie to all this is the Dorset Naga tests, performed on a pepper from the northern India region, which found similar results to what the Indians found. Join the dots. It's not the Indians who are lying, it's certain self-appointed "experts" (*cough*Dave DeWitt*cough*) here in the West who got their racist noses out of joint when the Indian tests went against their pet theories of what the hottest pepper is.
 
And here's the evidence of his racism. Without any proof whatsoever that the Indians cheated, in fact with proof from Dorset that they probably did NOT cheat, DeWitt, the self-styled "Pope of Peppers", published this:

Dave DeWitt said:
How to Rig an HPLC Test

You’d think that a test is just a test, right? No, wrong. A test is only as good as its sample, its calibration, its operator, and its interpreter. There are no legal regulations or policies on the testing of chile peppers for pungency, and no restraints imposed upon claims made as a result of the test. So this means that if you provide a sample to a laboratory and they provide a superhot result, you can make any claims you want, much like the Indians did. There is no requirement for validation through another test. Not that I would ever do such a thing, but if I were going to prove that I grew the hottest chile in the world, here’s how I would proceed.

1. Find a laboratory that will test my sample with no questions asked about its origin.
2. Provide a carefully prepared sample. Instead of drying the chiles and presenting the entire pod, I would find the hottest habaneros imaginable and carefully remove the placental tissue, where the capsaicin glands are located, and then with tweezers pull off all the seeds and discard them. The idea is to test just the hottest part of the pod.
3. If the sample still doesn’t test hot enough for me, I would submit another sample, but this one treated with 1 million or more Scoville Heat Unit oleoresin capsicum, the superhot extract. This would skew the results even higher.
4. Then I would call a press conference and invite the gullible Associated Press, who spread the Indian story around the world, and tell them that I grew the hottest chile in the world, and provide them with the test results from the laboratory.

See how easy it is to manufacture the "proof?"
Click to expand...

The Indian researchers and people involved should simply sue this guy's pants off. It's both racism AND libel. Shame, Mr DeWitt, shame!
 
Let them sue on what grounds? That quote has totally nothing to do with racism. The article is about someone claiming to have the hottest pepper, but doesn't have the evidence to back it up, so they explain how you could fake evidence that a pepper that hot would exist. They don't claim that anyone did, nor do I see them talking about a race, so what exactly is racist about that text? I'm from holland so my English reading and writing isn't always 100% perfect, so maybe I read the article wrong and I totally missed the point, In that case I apologize . But I'd love to here some clarification in that case.
Greetings Remi
[quote name='Pappy McPepper]And here's the evidence of his racism. Without any proof whatsoever that the Indians cheated' date=' in fact with proof from Dorset that they probably did NOT cheat, DeWitt, the self-styled "Pope of Peppers", published [url=[URL]http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/assam_chile2.asp']this[/url[/URL]]:



The Indian researchers and people involved should simply sue this guy's pants off. It's both racism AND libel. Shame, Mr DeWitt, shame![/QUOTE]
 
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