Unlike most peppers, ghost peppers produce capsaicin in vesicles not only in the placenta around the seeds but also throughout the fruit.

In 2005, New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute in Las Cruces, New Mexico found ghost peppers grown from seed in southern New Mexico to have a Scoville rating of 1,001,304 SHUs by HPLC. For comparison, Tabasco red pepper sauce rates at 2,500–5,000, and pure capsaicin (the chemical responsible for the pungency of pepper plants) rates at 16,000,000 SHUs. In 2000, India's Defence Research Laboratory (DRL) reported a Scoville rating for the ghost pepper of 855,000 SHUs, and in 2004 a rating of 1,041,427 SHUs was made using HPLC analysis. In northeastern India, the bhut jolokia is also known as the 'king chilli' or 'king cobra chilli''. In Manipur, the chili is called umorok or oo-morok ('tree chili'). It has also been called the Tezpur chili after the Assamese city of Tezpur. Other usages on the subcontinent are saga jolokia, 'Indian mystery chili' and 'Indian rough chili'. This name is especially common in other regions where it is grown, such as Assam and Manipur. Similarly, in Nagaland, one of the regions of cultivation, the chili is called Naga jolokia ('Naga chili' also romanized nôga zôlôkia) and bhut jolokia (also romanized bhût zôlôkiya). In Assam, the pepper is also known as bih zôlôkia ('poison chili'), from Assamese bih 'poison' and zôlôkia 'chili pepper,' denoting the plant's heat. The name bhüt jolokia (ভোট জলকীয়া) means 'Bhutanese pepper' in Assamese the first element bhüt, meaning 'Bhutan', was mistakenly confused for a near- homonym bhut meaning 'ghost'. However, in the race to grow the hottest chili pepper, the ghost chili was superseded by the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper in 2011 and the Carolina Reaper in 2013. The ghost chili is rated at more than one million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs) and far surpasses the amount of a cayenne pepper.

In 2007, Guinness World Records certified that the ghost pepper was the world's hottest chili pepper, 170 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. It is a hybrid of Capsicum chinense and Capsicum frutescens. ' Bhutan pepper' in Assamese ), is an interspecific hybrid chili pepper cultivated in Northeast India. The ghost pepper, also known as bhut jolokia ( lit. Northeast India (especially in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland).

Carolina reaper vs ghost chili