Tabasco_pepper
Tabasco pepper
Variety of chili pepper
The tabasco pepper is a variety of the chili pepper species Capsicum frutescens originating in Mexico. It is best known through its use in Tabasco sauce, followed by peppered vinegar.[1]
Like all C. frutescens cultivars, the tabasco plant has a typical bushy growth, which commercial cultivation makes stronger by trimming the plants. The tapered fruits, around 4 cm long, are initially pale yellowish-green and turn yellow and orange before ripening to bright red. Tabascos rate from 30,000 to 50,000[2] on the Scoville scale of heat levels,[3]. Tabasco fruits, like all other members of the C. frutescens species, remain erect when mature, rather than hanging down from their stems.
A large part of the tabasco pepper stock fell victim to the tobacco mosaic virus in the 1960s; the first resistant variety (Greenleaf tabasco) was not cultivated until around 1970.[4]