I'm moving my post from the purple bhut thread in the marketplace forum to here. (Clicking on a link in the "new content" section makes it easy to get into the marketplace forum without realizing where you are.) To the extent I've contributed to any sort of flamewar, I apologize. I said twice in my original post that I wasn't criticizing the seeds I received, but rather the way the information about mature pod color was presented. My criticism was intended to be constructive, but clearly wasn't taken that way. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said. Here it is in its original form (some extra bolding added). The "other thread" I reference is the white bhut thread.
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Well, look, I'm not complaining about the product. Having these color phases at any point is interesting enough in itself. Please take this in the spirit of constructive criticism, but this thread is misleading. Normally when someone talks about a <insert color here> pepper, it's sort of expected that refers to the mature color (except maybe for some of the "rainbow" ornamentals). How is someone to know they have to look at some other thread to get an accurate description of the pepper? I only found that other thread just now. Even there, the description leads one to believe the mature color of the white is white/cream, showing
some red only if left overlong. To wit:
as far as i gather from my supplier ( hard to speak to someone who can hardly speak english )
they start dark green when immature and loose colour to white / cream when they are ripe , as with purples if left they will eventually show some red .
and
The pods when unripe are dark green , when mature they are the light white / cream colour if left be afther this they start showing a light pink colour. They seem to behave much like the purple , they have their purple or in this case white stage then they start showing a bit of colour if left past maturity
this is information I gathered straight from the supplier , they never turn red , just a bit of colour past maturity
Bold added by me (below, too). This seems a bit different from the recent comment in this thread:
Like the purples they all ripen to red . It was written in my original post . the pods go green to white and finally fully ripen to red. Purples are the same they also fully ripen to red
but maybe that's just me. As for the website, the links to the THP special pricing offers don't have any description at all. It's only by clicking on the links for the regular listings that you find for the whites:
"
although as with purples if left be after maturity they will start showing some red "
and finally for the purples:
"Purples ripen from green to purple turning red finally"
which seems a long way to have to go to get the low down.
Again, I'm happy to have the seeds, but the thread (this thread) could have been a whole lot clearer on the matter of mature pod color. I don't think I'm the only to have misunderstood.
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That's the end of my original post.
So first, based on the purple bhut thread where I first found the offer for both colors and the information contained in the links to the offers for purple and white at the SAC website, there is no indication the pods are anything other than purple or white. I'll repeat my previous question, how is a person to know they have to look in other threads or look at other links to learn the truth?
I believe stc3248 is cherry-picking SAC's comments to make it seem there is no confusion, but how can you ignore, "
they never turn red"? As for his (stc3248's) suggestion that WCA and I were colluding on a slander campaign, that's just absurd. (And the correct term would be libel, if true, which it isn't.) I never knew WCA before all this and, in fact, her original post about two red pods barely caught my eye. I wouldn't expect these strains to be stable and so a few red pods would not be unexpected. What caught my attention was SAC's subsequent response that, "
they all ripen to red", which the last time I checked was pretty much the exact opposite of "
they never turn red". What am I missing here? Of course, stc3248 has admitted he's a bit of a pot-stirrer, so good job there, consider the pot stirred. Oh, and apology accepted and likewise, no hard feelings.
What I suspect has happened here is that SAC
was mislead by his supplier of 8 years and genuinely believed the mature pod colors were white and purple. I got my seeds promptly, for a good price, and hopefully in good condition. (They got very slightly crunched in shipping, but that's not his fault; padding was included. I'll start germinating them in the next few days and report back.) So for the third or fourth time, I'm not complaining about the product. I just think SAC could have done a better job of informing his customers of his evolving understanding of what the final pod colors were. Is there no such thing as constructive criticism anymore?
edit: corrected WAC to WCA.
saying my address was not valid 
