Chocolate 7 Pot Marabella Pepper Review
Before the 2018 season began, I received an awesome package of seeds from a fellow pepper grower. One of those packets of seeds contained a chocolate 7 Pot variant called the Marabella. I believe the moniker is a reference to a market in Trinidad, but I’m not 100% sure. Regardless, I’ve currently got two plants producing peppers, one at home in a self-watering bucket system and the other in the ground at my overflow plot.
This particularly wicked looking thing comes from the bucket. It’s roughly twice the size of a quarter (as seen below) and looks like a wrinkled, folded and gnarly lump of nastiness culled from the depths of some deep, dark chasm. So, you know, it made me nervous.
Once, I cut into the pod, my feeling of nervousness slowly morphed into fear. The inside of this thing is scary. The placenta is full and spongey, filling most of the interior as pools of oil collect in every nook and cranny. The thin skinned pepper puts off an earthy aroma with an aroma that doesn’t smell overtly fiery and not perfume-y as some of the superhots can be.
You can see the size of the sample I chomped on in the photo below. It really wasn’t all that big, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t leave a lasting impression. The skin crunches nicely as a peppery and earthy flavor spreads with a light floral trait.
The heat isn’t there… at first. It builds excruciatingly slowly, eventually engulfing the tongue as hiccups start up and the eyes begin to water. The burn spreads deliberately down the throat to a warming glow in the chest. The tongue burn is now pretty intense as it shifts to a stinging presence that let me know that I was not nearly ready for this sort of test.
Fifteen or so minutes after that initial chew, the heat slowly starts to falter. It’s left a runny nose and light tears in its wake. While I wasn’t quite prepared for that sort of burn this early in the season, I still thoroughly enjoyed this pod. The Marabella wasn’t floral or perfumey as some in this heat range. The earthiness was enjoyable.
This pepper is intensely hot and is going to make for some great sauces. I’m going to work on some dried blends as well where this sort of heat is going to work quite well.