Armageddon (pepper)

The Armageddon chili pepper is the world's first F1 'Super Hot' chili pepper. It is a hybrid of C. chinense and C. frutescens. Armageddon was developed by hot pepper grower and developer, Salvatore Genvoese of the UK. It was introduced to the UK market in 2019. The pepper holds a rating of 1.3 million SHU (Scoville Heating Units).

Development and distribution
Armageddon is a landrace, and a hybrid of C. chinense and C. frutescens. One of the ‘Super Hot’ chilies, the fruity-flavored pepper was cultivated to be a quick growing and easily harvested pepper, making it a leading candidate for the growing of 'Super Hots' at scale. In 2019, the developer of the Armageddon promoted it as "…the hottest commercially grown chili in the UK…" although the heat level was well below the then Guinness World Records individual pepper heat leaders, the Naga Viper, Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper, and the Carolina Reaper.

It is distributed in Britain by the Tozer Seeds company, and Burpee in the US. Its creator, Genvoese, was the developer several years earlier of the Komodo Dragon pepper, another hot chili labeled an "exceptionally hot" at the time of its introduction to the market (2014).

Appearance and pungency
The Armageddon plant spreads to an average width of 1.5 feet, and grows to an average height of 2.5 feet. One plant will produce fruits up to 2" long, that require up to 75 days to reach maturity, much quicker than that of the Carolina Reaper. The Armageddon pepper has been classified as 'Exceptionally Hot', and is rated on the Scoville heat scale at 1.3 million units, which is about 400 times hotter than the typical jalapeño pepper rating.