Habaneros Taste

[AlittleSalt]

Just about everyone has heard about habanero peppers. There are a lot of untrue thoughts about them. I know people who think they are the hottest peppers available. Well, in a average grocery store - I guess they are.

What I'm wondering is if there is a lot of difference in the taste of the different habanero varieties? I don't mean how hot they are, but taste.

I grew some NuMex Suave Orange which is nowhere near as hot as an average Jalapeno. However, I did not care for the taste - it had an odd taste that didn't taste like any other pepper I've ever eaten.
Kind of like eating a stink bug.

[Cole_Robbie]

Big Sun Hab is my favorite by far. As a bonus, the peppers are huge.

[peppero]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Big Sun Hab is my favorite by far. As a bonus, the peppers are huge.

Cole where did you get the seeds ?.

Jon

[Cole_Robbie]

It was a trade with a t'villle member who swaps pepper seeds on another site. I have seeds from my plant last year if anyone wants them. Some of my pepper seeds have been sketchy about germination, but the Big Sun have been fine.

[dmforcier]

Yes, Big Sun is tasty, but I found it persnickety and hard to grow. Pretty warm too.

Salt, habs have their own taste. I don't know how to describe it - something akin to floral; we just call it "hab flavor". Some people don't like it. Some do. Sometimes it carries over into crosses.

Frankly, I wouldn't expect the no-heat habs to have a flavor all that much like the "real thing". But then I've never grown them.

Try buying some at the store, then strip out the placenta and sample the pointy end to see what you think. It may be that you don't like "hab flavor". Or it may be something else.

[Cole_Robbie]

Mine did great in a 3-gallon pot with just pro mix and osmocote.

If you spread out the pepper over enough burger meat, you can get the flavor without any heat, or at least any that I can notice.

The only other Hab I am growing is a white pepper, an offspring of White Bullet Hab from someone who saved seeds from the hybrid. I don't like the real White Bullet, but I do like whatever this plant is. It grew 7' tall, and I picked a 5-gallon bucket of peppers off of one plant. The pic below is the second picking. The 2nd pic is my Big Sun.

[AlittleSalt]

DM, I've wondered the same thing. I have read that they have a floral/fruity taste.

My favorites (That have heat) are Jalapeno, Anaheim, Poblano, Serrano, and Tabasco. After looking at my list, you can get the first 4 fresh in the grocery store, and Tabasco sauce on the hot sauce isle. That explains why my favorite non hot peppers are Bells.

I have grown 100+ varieties of peppers and my favorites are grocery store varieties. $%^&

I tried a fresh orange habanero from a local Mexican store. It had a pleasant citrus taste (not overpowering like a stink bug). I've had floral-tasting peppers, I believe, but these didn't taste floral to me. I've had fresh peppers I would describe as fruity (e.g. Aji Omnicolor), but the fresh orange habanero had a distinctly citrus taste to me. I'm growing a bunch of seasoning peppers, similar to habaneros. I can let you know how they taste if/when I get fruit. I haven't tried other fresh habaneros, but I have had habanero salsa (I didn't detect citrus or other fruit/floral flavors in it). I imagine they all taste at least somewhat different, and they're probably different in different growing conditions, too.

[Worth1]

To me a serrano pepper has got to be the most worthless hot pepper on earth.
Thin walls, no flavor and full of seeds.
Worth

[Worth1]

I have seen habanero come off the same plant that had no heat at all to being able to light a cigar with them later in the year.
You cant judge the heat of any peppers by the first set of fruit.

Worth

[NewWestGardener]

From the posts here I've learned that stick bugs stink, I've never had the pleasure of the experience.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by NewWestGardener

From the posts here I've learned that stick bugs stink, I've never had the pleasure of the experience.

Stink bugs stink nothing like biting into one in your garden salad.
We have stick bugs too.
Worth

[Salsacharley]

This year I'm growing several types of habs, including the new "NuMex Trick or Treat" heatless one. I look forward to finding out how they all relate. I've got White Habanero #2, Lightning Mix from Baker Creek, Mustard Hab, but I don't have any standard orange habs this year.

[AlittleSalt]

Okay, the stinkbug taste was supposed to be funny

That habanero plant had a story behind it. It had been planted out in a garden that was mostly clay. It was in 2015 - a record year for rainfall. I had to dig up and move the 1/3 grown plant to a different garden that is sandy loam. I think that must have stressed the plant a lot, and played a big part in what the peppers tasted like. I can't compare the taste to anything else - therefor the joke about it tasting like a stinkbug.

I have tasted small amounts of habanero in sauces and they tasted nothing like the peppers from that plant.

[Worth1]

Salt when you finish one of them big jars of wallmart okra get a bag of habaneros and put them in the juice and forget about them for awhile.
Worth