Chile Pepper Fun Fact - The Datil Chile Pepper
The Official Chile Pepper of St. Augustine, Florida
A datil pepper is a small hot pepper found in great abundance locally here in St. Augustine. The pepper is a variety of the species Capsicum Chinese also known as "yellow lantern chili." The botanist who discovered Capsicum Chinese misnamed the plant, believing peppers of this species originated in China.
The official pepper of St. Augustine, Florida. Go there and you'll find many restaurants proudly feature this pepper which has been a part of the city's heritage for over a century. They even have an annual Datil Pepper Festival in October, with the first Saturday in October being Datil Pepper Day. The festival aims to encourage the cultivation of the Datil pepper in the St. Augustine area.
A datil pepper is similar in its heat index to a habanero, hitting at around 100,000 to 300,000 on the Scoville scale--a scale used to measure the spiciness of peppers. But unlike habaneros, datil peppers are sweet, with a fruitful tangy taste to them.