I thought that if you were to drink 50 bottles of Tabasco, the spiciness itself wouldn’t increase? So what does it mean?
In: Chemistry
The chemical that causes the sensation of spiciness is capsaicin. Presumably that pepper has as much capsaicin as 50 bottles of tobasco.
How spicy something is is measured with a unit called scovilles which comes from the concentration of capsicasin, the chemical the make something taste spicy. What this probably means is that the amount of capsicasin in *this pepper* is fifty times the amount of capsicasin in a bottle of Tabasco
No one should be talking about a specific pepper having any equivalence to a bottle of Tabasco. That’s the wrong way to frame the comparison and anyone who did is speaking inelegantly. You should always be comparing equal amounts.
Spiciness is measured on the Scoville scale. Originally this was measured by taking a unit of the spicy substance (let’s say 1 tablespoon) and dissolving it an amount of sugar water until the spiciness can no longer be detected by a panel of tasters.
So, if it took 9,000 tablespoons of sugar water to dilute 1 tablespoon of Tabasco sauce then we say that the Scoville rating of Tabasco is 9,000.
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