Peter Piper Picked A Pickled Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper

Danise Coon knows her chile peppers.

She is with the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University — which says that the hottest pepper around is the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. It's about the size of a golf ball and packs quite a punch — so much of a punch that while Coon and her students were harvesting them, their protective gloves were burned.

Not everyone is happy about the news. The Bhut Jolokia had been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the hottest chile pepper around. In an article in an Indian newspaper called The Hindustan Times, the author suggests that the Chile Pepper Institute has a financial incentive to declare Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper the hottest in the world.