Does not exist!
Ok, to be fair a pepper does exist that is a called a purple bhut jolokia but in my opinion someone just named it a bhut jolokia so they could sell seeds.
1. It’s nowhere near as hot a bhut jolokia. Nowhere.
2. It doesn’t look a bhut jolokia, at all. Here’s a shot of some of my red bhut jolokias:
And here’s a shot of the “purple” bhut jolokia:
3. The pods do turn purple but ripen to red. Here’s a shot of a purple bhut plant that clearly shows red pods on the plant:
No offense to anyone growing this pepper, from what I hear it’s a decent tasting pepper and the plants produce well. I’m just not sold on the name…it’s not a bhut and dos not finish to purple so should not be called a purple bhut. I believe the earliest mentions of this pepper were in mid 2010 from a user at TheHotPepper names JSKaiser. He’s been banned from the site for awhile and if memory is correct didn’t do right by a lot of folks in the pepper growing community and in general has a terrible reputation.
So there you have it. People can call peppers whatever they want but this is one of the cases where the name is completely misleading. I for one will not grow this pepper nor will I acknowledge that a true purple bhut jolokia even exists!
Your plants are looking great! I haven’t had a Peach Bhut yet but It’s on the list. My mind is not made up on the Purple or White Bhut yet. I am looking to get seeds from the original source and grow them out. If that is at all possible. I’m not sure yet. But I will let you know what happens when I do. Keep up the good fight Jeremy!
Thanks. The Peach bhut is doing great…hopefully it ripens to peach
I’m pretty sure the white bhut has been completely written off as a fake…it too ripens to red. There’s more info in this thread: http://thehotpepper.com/topic/27277-shout-out-to-smokinasschillicom/
I think the “purple bhut” name will stick even though to me that thing ain’t a bhut!
Hope your season is going well, grow on.
OK I have to comment since we have three of these plants. I know you warned us we’d be disappointed with these. What I do find interesting, is the baby pods on our plants actually start out as purple (some very vivid purple) and not green. The stems have also always been purple (even as seedlings) and parts of the leaves are also of a purplish tint. Some of the younger pods resemble the ones pictured above but some of the older pods seem to narrow and actually resemble ghosts or Bhuts. So far none of them have ripened to red yet but I figure they are going to ripen to some color eventually. I’m sure there are probably multiple versions of the “purple ghost” out there. They are interesting looking plants–I got to give em that. I guess we’ll see what happens with them in the near future!
Thanks for comment Michele, keep us posted, would love to know how your purple bhuts turn out. Everything I’ve read and pictures I have seen indicate they ripen to red.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. You know considerably more about these peppers than I do. I’m fully prepared for these peppers to ripen to red. I’m suprised by the fact that the baby pods were never green, they started out as purple.
Hello!
Thank you for nice posting and information. I bought this BJ purple (lila) seeds end of year 2010 from Germany eBay. Unstable pod color is one of mysterious thing. Also when this has been named german “lila” purple I get more mysterious to this. Finally I get information and heart “right” name to this variety. This variety is not quite hot (IMO 9) .
Here is some photos of my BJP or whatever it should be call.
http://www.chillipeper.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=813
Your link doesn’t work.
A few of our Bhuts that started out purple are now a pale lemon yellow,but it’s not the vivid orange yellow that our other peppers get before they turn red. I’d say they are closer in color to a banana pepper at this point.
That’s weird…do the pods look like the ones in the picture above? Can you post a picture?
The normal sized pods are more narrow than the ones in the pic above. They almost look like a cross between the ones in the pic and authentic ghost peppers. The same plants also have some mini pods of a more rounded shape. Yesterday I discovered two of the mini pods had turned orange/red and one of the larger pods is losing it’s banana color and getting orange.
UPDATE–The supposid “purple bhuts” are definately ripening to red. Two of the “mini” sized pods ripened to red first so my husband and his friend sampled them Friday. Wish I would have had a camera rolling. Things were rather boring till they hit the seed part. That’s when the cussing started, and my husband went running for a bag of chips to absorb some of the heat. They said (before their mouths began burning) that the flavor of the peppers was very good actually. I thought hell froze over when my husband commented, “That will take some getting used to.” They only got through half of one of the mini pods. Would those smaller pods be more intense of a heat than the normal sized pods? In any case the “Purple Ghost” (atleast the version we have) is literally hot as hell.
Heat can vary significantly from pod to pod, even on the same plant. Whole pods of any of the super hots are too much for me!