Update: My move got delayed so the craigslist ad has now been running for two months and I do actually get the occasional response. My 80 original plants are now down to 35. Average buyer leaves with 4.9 plants and 21 fewer $$. At the moving sale a month ago the sales manager listed the garden plants as an item in the sale description. Hoards of ladies arrived with shovels and turned my pleasant garden into a cratered scape reminiscent of the Somme. But only one pepper plant sold - the 3 year old serrano loaded with red pods. People were actually scared of the gnarly pods on the other plants, mothers warning their children not to touch. Of nine I have only one BJ left, "little" Immortal Beloved, and could have sold more. The gorgeous Chocolate Scotch Bonnet with its hundred pods went early to a Jamaican lady who left me with a jar of her commercial jerk sauce. Orange marzano went immediately, too, as did the one year-old jalapeno tree. Never seen a pepper so productive so early. One guy wanted all my Red Fatalii but I kept one runt. I like RFs a lot - will grow more. All buyers were directed here, so we may all benefit. P.S. I can't give Japone's or small jalapenos away. Dennis

Thanks DMF. Agreed, wll have to pick some key ones for next year. Good eye Judo. You are right, the last six i'm keeping in the chile chamber. Thought I'd keep a selection isolated from the outside. -E

Watching Youtube videos, I'd say 7-pot (various strains), primo, Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, and Carolina Reaper all seem to have a fruity or fruity/floral flavor. The lone exception is that some of the chocolate super hots have a bit of a smoky flavor added to the fruity or floral. (For example the Douglah (aka "7 Pot Douglah", "Chocolate 7 Pot", "Chocolate Douglah") has a bit of a smoky undercurrent going on. The Jamaican Chocolate Habanero doesn't have a smoky flavor, but rather taste like a milder version of the orange habanero, but heat wise it's like the Red Savanna. Takes time for the heat to build from the videos I've watched.

Sorry about the double post, I realized I didn't answer Honu's question. Honu, Aloha! Honestly, I cannot say I have had the pleasure of trying a Hawaiian chile. Someday I certainly will if I can get my hands on the seeds. Regarding your question; I will split it into two parts. First, as far as heat, heat is a somewhat subjective thing. Now, it's true that no one on earth would day that a bell pepper is hotter than a chocolate hab, but different species of capsicum have different types and ratios of capsaicin. Therefore, if someone has only eaten habaneros (capsicum chinense) their whole life and then bites into a manzano chile (capsicum pubescens) they would certainly find it hotter than someone who has been eating manzanos their whole life. For instance, I can bear habaneros but choke like crazy on jalapenos, which have lower levels of capsaicin but a type of capsaicin I am not used to. Capsaicin is a vanilla-like compound (no kidding) that binds to the pain receptors in your mouth. I'm not quite sure what happens to build tolerance (perhaps an increased level of some certain enzyme?) but something makes eating a certain type of chile more bearable after a while. That being said, I have read HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography, which involves the extraction of capsaicin from the sample pepper and the direct measurement of the level) reports on some of these chiles, and nothing compares to the amount of capsaicin in the capsicum chinense species. They have a very high level of capsaicin compared to other peppers and HPLC is a much more accurate and less subjective method of measuring heat than the scoville units test (a dilution test). The hottest capsicum chinenses that I have tried? Trinidad scorpion, chocolate scotch bonnet, chocolate habanero. I have a friend who claims the USDA datil is the hottest thing he has ever tried (out of I would guess hundreds of different chinenses) and another friend who swears by something called a trinidad 7-pod (also known as a 7-pot, the name being a derivation of the fact that one pepper will season 7 pots of soup, go figure). With that, we will see what comes for me in the future but I can say this: the red savina is not the world's hottest pepper. Regarding taste: that's a tough one. I like the more fruity, citrusy chinenses over the smoky ones, and don't like the taste of annuums that much. For annuums, pequins and long slim cayennes are nicely flavored and pretty versatile. My favorites are obviously the chinenses though, and if I were to pick the best tasting they would be, in no order, limon, fatalii, datil, caribbean red hab, chocolate hab (quite smoky but still very nice), billy goat, true scotch bonnet, devil's tongue, red hab (wonderful!), yellow hab (like an incredibly hot datil), grenada scotch bonnet, scotch bonnet, red (from tomatogrowers). Of these if you are looking for something a bit milder and not so explosive stick with scotch bonnet, red, yellow scotch bonnet, and limon, I think they are bearable. If you are looking for something mild but still good tasting go with aji dulce #2. I hope I didn't overanswer your question. To trim it down to five chinenses would certainly involve limons, datils, caribbean reds, fataliis and chocolate habs, but that does not do justice to the wonderful flavor and versatility of some of the others I have tried, which are just as delicious but not as brutally hot. Good luck with chile growing and if you have any other questions let me know. Mark p.s. we did have a humid summer this year, very humid in fact, and the chiles did well. I don't know if humidity affects them as much as heat, and certainly fertilizer and water level affects them as well. Basically, the more stress the hotter the pepper, but I am in NJ so we are not usually incredibly hot or humid. Peace!