Japan’s long-lost 'spiciest' chili pepper found; revival heats up

MOTOSU, Gifu Prefecture--A city official here took home two lessons after biting into an unfamiliar green fruit he saw at a barbecue.

One lesson was that city-promotion ideas can arise at any time. The other was that he should never put unfamiliar things in his mouth.

A burning sensation quickly spread until Makoto Sumi’s entire mouth felt like it was on fire and the city official was panting for relief.

He had chomped into a Tokuyama chili pepper.

The pepper, widely considered Japan’s spiciest, was believed to have been lost forever, but a chance encounter with a farmer--and the inferno in Sumi’s mouth--proved that it still existed.

“Rather than spicy, it was painful,” Sumi, 57, recalled.

Ever since Sumi’s excruciating experience in 2012, Motosu city officials have continued efforts to revive the chili pepper and use it to promote the city.

The pepper had been used by residents of the former Tokuyama village in a special recipe known as “jigoku udon” (hell udon). The noodle dish was said to be so spicy it warmed up villagers during the frigid winters in Gifu Prefecture, central Japan.

However, the village’s more than 1,600 residents relocated in 1987 to make way for construction of the Tokuyama Dam. They included farmers who grew the Tokuyama chili pepper.

The abandoned village disappeared under water when the dam was completed in 2008. Many people believed the chili pepper suffered a similar fate.

In August 2012, Sumi was working in the Motosu city government’s industry and economy section and looking for a product that could make the community stand out.

He visited the home of Shinsaku Hata, 80, head of the farming cooperative in Nogo in Motosu’s Neo area, about 5 kilometers east of the Tokuyama Dam.

It was Hata who had laid out the Tokuyama chili pepper that Sumi sampled.

In addition to farming, Hata worked as a stone mason and was involved in the construction of roads used by vehicles to build the Tokuyama Dam.

Hata lived and worked in Tokuyama village during the construction. He took a fancy to the pickles that were made using the chili pepper and he continued growing them on his own farm. He still has about 300 plants.

Nogo was home to about 40 farming households in 1970, but the aging of the population has cut that number to five.

Farmers in the Nogo district had long faced problems with wild deer, boar and monkeys stealing their harvests. However, the animals did not dare consume the spicy Tokuyama chili pepper, according to the local legend.

Sumi came up with the idea of restoring the Tokuyama chili pepper as “the lost chili pepper that sank to the bottom of the dam.”

In 2015, the Motosu city government began a trial sale of powdered chili pepper in bottles. At an autumn festival, the bottles were sold for 200 yen ($1.82) each. Within an hour, several dozen bottles had sold out.

The local farming cooperative is seeking various ways to use the chili pepper in business projects.

The city government plans to team up with university researchers to analyze the spicy elements in the pepper.

“From the results of the analysis, we want to be able to publicize the fact that it is the spiciest chili pepper in Japan,” Sumi said.

The ultimate goal is to turn the product into a brand name.

One idea being thrown around is producing new dishes by combining the chili pepper with “gibier,” the French term for wild game.

In March, a processing facility was completed in Motosu to prepare the meat of wild deer and boar for distribution of gibier. The hope is that the Tokuyama chili pepper will be powerful enough to cover the gamey smell of the wild meat.