Purple Jalapeno Pepper Review
When I was deciding/planning what peppers to grow for the 2018 season, I was interested in variations of your “standard” peppers like habanero and jalapeno. The Purple Jalapeno (purchased from Kearley Seeds & Pepper Company) was one of the three variants of that family that I opted to move forward with. It joined your run-of-the-mill jalapeno and the Craig’s Grand in a corner of the overflow plot.
While many of the other plants in the dirt at this location thrived, the Purple Jalapeno plant remained fairly small in stature — perhaps it was crowded out by the Aji Rico and not-Scotch Bonnets nearby. Despite its smaller overall size, the plant bursted with purple flowers early in the season, eventually putting out a decent number of smallish fruit that ripened from a near-black, dark purple to a deep read in color.
As you can see above, the individual fruit aren’t all that big, maybe reaching two inches at the longest. Their shape looks pretty standard for a pepper, though not really in the same realm as your standard jalapeno. Once cut open, I could see a decent outer wall, placenta that runs almost the full length and a pile of seeds for a fairly small pod.
The aroma is a bit earthier than your store-bought jalapenos with a light fruitiness and vegetal base. It doesn’t smell overly “fiery” in the least. There’s a distant hint of floral notes that comes and goes.
Biting into the pepper provides a solid crunch of the thick skin as a decent fruitiness and light sweetness (like a sweet red pepper) wash over the tongue. I felt like the skin was a bit tougher than most peppers I’ve encountered. The heat level is low-to-mild with a smooth, slow building and even overall mouth burn.
I liked this little plant and its peppers a good deal. They weren’t ideal for stuffing as I like to do with the larger varieties and the skin was a bit leathery to eat fresh on a consistent basis, but using the mild pepper in a marinade where it may soften a bit would be the right way to go. Regardless, this is one I will grow again in the future, but not next season — I have other jalapeno varieties I want to check out.