Las Cruces (New Mexico), Feb. 18 (AP): It’s the hottest in the world and it’s Indian.

A chilli grown in Assam has been confirmed the hottest pepper by the Guinness World Records.

A US researcher said he found that the Bhut Jolokia — the name translates as ghost chilli — comes at a scorching 1,001,304 Scoville heat units.

That is nearly twice as hot as the Red Savina, the chilli the Assam pepper replaces as the hottest.

An average Jalapeno’s hotness is in the region of 10,000 Scoville heat units, a measure of hotness for chilli peppers.

Paul Bosland, Regents professor at New Mexico State University, recalls taking a bite of a Bhut Jolokia and feeling like he was breathing fire. He gulped down a soda, thinking: “That chilli has got to be some kind of record.”

The Guinness World Records agreed, confirming recently that Bosland had discovered the world’s hottest chilli.

A member of the university’s Chille Pepper Institute who was visiting India sent seeds of the Bhut Jolokia, which naturally grows as a hybrid native in Assam, back to New Mexico for testing in 2001.

The plant does not bear fruit easily, so it took some years to get enough chillis for field testing, Bosland said.