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Originally Posted by karen_in_nh_2012
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There's very much a difference between different pepper species.
The sweet peppers you see in grocery stores are all
capsicum anuum. There are subtle differences in taste. Among red peppers, generally longer, thin skinned ones (ex Jimmy Nardello) will have a stronger flavour than the bell peppers (ex California Wonder) which are crunchy, juicy, sweet, but not much else. Green peppers are just unripe red/orange/yellow peppers, and will be more bitter and grassy tasting, and less sweet. Orange/yellow might be more citrusy tasting, but I feel like half of that is just the colour playing mind games with you. Some peppers can also have brown and purple hues, but these often still have red undertones when they're ripe, and taste mostly like sweet red peppers.
There's another class of anuum peppers, which Hungarians (I'm half Hungarian) call "white peppers". Included in that group are Banana peppers (which are more or less Hungarian Wax peppers).
As well as Hungarian bell peppers, such as Gypsy peppers (which is an American bred hybrid, but still the same type of pepper as Hungarian bells).
These will eventually turn yellow, then orange-reddish, but they're generally eaten at the light green-white-light yellow stage. These have a different taste from the typical yellow/orange/red anuum peppers.
Common anuum varieties sold in stores include. They're all different varieties that are still all within the anuum species.
Sweet: Bell peppers, mini bell peppers, paprika, marconi, sweet italian (also most generic names like "long red pepper"), pimiento
White: Hungarian bell peppers, Hungarian hot wax, banana peppers
Mildly hot: cubanelle, jalapeno, poblano, fresno, Anaheim, cherry
Moderately hot to hot: cayenne, serrano, thai chillies
Green: green bells, shi****os, pepperoncini (usually pickled)
And then you have the other species of peppers. Much less common in grocery stores.
Capsicum chinense: The second most common species in stores after capsicum anuum. Most of them are very hot... or very very very hot. Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets are the most common ones in the produce aisle, those are "only" very hot. However, there are varieties that are 10x hotter, commercial usage of which is basically just limited to hot sauces, like Ghost, Reaper, Scorpion, Datil, Bhut Jolokia. The hot sauces typically only have a very small amount of these super hot peppers in them, even the hot sauces that have intimidating names and labels on them. These hot sauces are usually mostly water, sugar, and milder peppers, and then 1% of super hots.
HOWEVER. Not all chinense peppers are super hot, which is good, because they have a very unique taste that's hard to make out when your mouth is on fire. Varieties like Roulette/Habanada, Trinidad Perfume, Biquinho, Tobago Seasoning, Aji Dulce have little to no heat, but still have the unique chinense flavour, which is hard to describe but it's a unique floral/fruity fragrance. I haven't seen any of these mild chinense peppers in stores, so I have to grow them myself.
Sugar Rush Peach is a very popular one among chili fans, it does have a decent amount of kick to it, but more reasonable than the super-hots.
Capsicum baccatum: I don't think I've ever seen these in stores. But they also have a unique fragrance to them, maybe a bit citrusy. These non-anuum species really do taste quite unique, they're almost as different from each other taste wise as a tomato and an eggplant would be. The most common variety is Bishop's Crown/Mad Hatter. Cambium's Aji Rainforest is also a baccatum variety. The two baccatum varieties I'm growing are Aji Santa Cruz and Aji Fantasy White.
Capsicum Pubescens: I haven't seen these in stores either. Probably some specialty stores in LA, New York and other big cities that carry to the Latin American community carry them though. I'm hoping to taste them for the first time this year, the fruits on my plants should start ripening soon (hopefully it's soon, not much time left before frosts). Unlike other peppers, these have black seeds (instead of white) and purple flowers (instead of white), and also have fuzzy leaves. The plants also grow very large and strong and woody, like a small tree. Supposedly very juicy and thick walled with a fruity aroma. Common types of pubescens peppers include rocoto, locoto, manzano. They also prefer cooler temperatures, being native to the Andes highlands, and can tolerate light freezes (apparently, haven't seen for myself yet). My plants are about 5ft tall and 6ft wide at the moment, so it's much bigger than the typical pepper that's 2-3ft tall and wide.
Capsicum Fruitescens: Most common pepper variety of this species is tabasco. Not sure what to say about the taste other than it's hot. Maybe if I can find a milder variety of Fruitescens I would be able to taste something more than heat.
There's also many wild species, but they are quite rare and often hard to grow outside their native range.
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