CGN 21500 Peppers – A Very Special Land Variety

The CGN 21500 pepper is a beautiful and unique chili variety. Discovered in South America, this land variety is part of the Capsicum chinense species.

It’s pumpkin-like shape and beautiful coloration make the CGN 21500 pepper a great candidate for cross breeding with other chinense varieties. They are also easy to grow in containers or in the ground.

This variety is one of our all-time favorite hot peppers, so allow us to explain why. In this article, we’ll share facts and background info about CGN 21500 peppers. This will include the origin of the pepper variety, the plant’s characteristics, the heat level, and more. Let’s get started!

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CGN 21500 Pepper Facts

• Diameter: 0.75-1″
• Length: 0.5-1″
• Scoville (heat): ~100,000 SHUs
• Color: Green to peach with purple accents (anthocyanins)
• Species: C. chinense
• Seeds: Bohica Pepper Hut

It must have been a joy to discover this wild variety of pepper. The CGN 21500 was discovered in Brazil, and is sometimes called the ‘Sunset Peach’ or ‘Purple Peach.’

Pepper Characteristics

This variety of pepper contains moderately high levels of anthocyanins. These compounds are powerful antioxidants, and cause purple coloration on the stems, leaves and peppers when exposed to sun.

Other pepper varieties contain even higher levels, such as the pimenta da neyde pepper or purple reaper, but the CGN 21500 has enough to be subtle and beautiful. The leaves have a deep green coloration, and when exposed to direct sunlight, the peppers develop speckles of purple.

The purple color against the ripe peach-colored pods make for one of the most attractive peppers that nature has given us!

Plant Characteristics

The CGN 21500 plant grows to be anywhere from 3-5′ tall, depending on the length and conditions of your growing season. The plants tend to produce many forking branches from very low on the main stem.

Productivity is very good, with new pods ripening sporadically throughout the late growing season. We found that more pods seemed to form and ripen when nighttime temperatures began to drop in the late summer.

While the plants can take a while to begin ripening peppers, the wait is worth it! Watch for the distinct color change from pale green and purple to a pale peach and purple when ripe.

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CGN 21500 Pepper Scoville Scale

The CGN 21500 is considered a ‘habanero’ type pepper, and therefore does come with some heat. However, we find the spiciness of this pepper is on the low end when compared to other habanero-type peppers.

In short, CGN 21500 peppers come in around 100,000 SHUs on the Scoville scale. This makes them a bit more tolerable than a traditional orange habanero, and much less spicy than a ghost pepper.

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CGN 21500 Pepper Flavor

These peppers make for a great entry point into the world of the C. chinense species. While they are spicy, they are much more tolerable than many hotter varieties.

Overall, CGN 21500 peppers taste as good as they look! They are sweet and fruity, relatively soft textured, and come with a slightly floral flavor. This makes them perfect for making fruity hot sauce or spicing up salsa or stir fry.

Tip: We found that these peppers make gorgeous and delicious pepper flakes – see how to dehydrate peppers for flakes here.

We find them to be tastier than almost any other habanero type pepper that we have grown. If you can handle the heat, they will surely become one of your go-to peppers for hot sauce and cooking.

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Since we love the beauty of the CGN 21500 pepper, we plan to experiment with cross breeding it with many other C. chinense types. In fact, we already created a cross with the Khang Starr lemon starrburst variety:

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Read Next:

• Fish peppers are gorgeous
• Black panther peppers
• All pepper varieties

I hope you enjoyed this article about the beautiful CGN 21500 pepper. It truly is one of our all-time favorite hot peppers! If you know of any other land varieties that we should grow, please let us know in the comments below.