Buena Mulata Chilli

A purple heirloom cayenne with a better story than most. The seed was kept through the first half of the twentieth century by Horace Pippin, the American folk artist and a serious gardener, who passed it to a beekeeper friend in 1944. It sat in an old seed collection for decades until the food historian William Woys Weaver found it and put it back into circulation.

The pods are long slim cayennes and they change colour the whole way through. They start a deep violet-purple, pass through lavender and pink into orange, then brown, and finish glossy red. A plant carries every stage at once against purple-flushed stems and purple and white flowers. The flavour shifts with the colour too. Violet-stage pods are sharper and more vegetal, fully red ones sweeter, fruitier and meatier, with a little smoke behind the heat.

At 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units it sits in ordinary cayenne territory, so it is usable rather than showy. It is a Capsicum annuum and a straightforward plant, bushy at around 75cm and startlingly productive. The slim pods dry fast and grind well. Wash your hands after cutting the fruit and keep it away from your eyes.