A habanero pepper is one of the spiciest types of chili peppers. The meaning of habanero is "from Havana" and the habanero pepper was transported from Cuba to the Yucatan Peninsula. Today, habaneros are grown mainly in the Yucatan, but also in Costa Rica, Belize, California and Texas. Habanero peppers are often used to make hot sauce.

Some people mistakenly believe that the seeds of a chili pepper are its spiciest part. Actually, the spiciest part of the habanero and other chili peppers is the pungent lipids called capsaicinoids. They are found in the highest concentrations in the sacs of the inside walls of the pepper; only a small amount of capsaicinoids are contained in the seeds. The habanero pepper is strong enough to irritate the eyes and skin so many people handle even the outside of habaneros with gloves.

The species name of the habanero pepper is Capsicum Chinense Jacquin and it is part of the Solanaceae family. Most habanero varieties ripen from green to orange and have a Scoville heat rating of between 150,000 to 325,000. The Scoville system for rating the amount of heat in chili peppers was invented by a German scientist named Wilbur Scoville. His system is not completely scientific as the tests are based on human tasting and are quite subjective. Still, Scoville units help greatly in comparing the approximate spiciness levels between different types of peppers.

The Scoville taste tests use different chili peppers mixed with a neutral-tasting food and then amounts of the pepper used gradually decreased to see how long the testers can still keep tasting the heat of the pepper used. The Red Savina™ variety of habanero is shiny red in color, has a wrinkled appearance and usually has a Scoville rating of above 325,000. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a Red Savina™ rated 577,000 Scoville units and is the hottest pepper in the world until the Naga Jolokia pepper came along, topping the SHU charts at over 1,000,000. Frank Garcia, a co-founder of GNS spices, developed the Red Savina™ pepper from a red fruited habanero plant he found growing in his orange fruited habanero field. He used the seeds from that first red habanero plant to develop the Red Savina™.

The Chocolate and the Scutaba are other varieties of the habanero. Chocolate habaneros have a wrinkled appearance and start as a green plant with cream colored flowers. They ripen to a chocolate brown color. The Scutaba habanero is a smooth-skinned and flavorful variety of habanero that is red in color. The Scotch Bonnet chili pepper is sometimes confused with the habanero as it is also a member of the species Capsicum Chinense. The Scotch Bonnet has a similar flavor to a habanero, but is bonnet-shaped and mostly grown in the Caribbean.