Roulette Hybrid Habanero Pepper

Germination was great. Plants were consistent 2.5 ft. Tall. Tons of peppers on every plant. Very fruity tasting and sweet, however at the end of season I stressed them and they got hot! They made fantastic hot sauce. I definitely recommend these easy to grow peppers.

I grew a few plants each of three types of reduced-heat habaneros: Habanada, Roulette and Primero. This is my review of Roulette. I am also posting reviews of the other two.

The germination was very poor. I had them in a covered tray in a sunny window with bottom heat. Two weeks after planting not a single one had come up and I was almost ready to give up, but eventually a few small, weak plants came up and I was able to continue the comparison.

The catalog color codes these as “Mild,” and lists them on the “Barely Warm” page. For the most part, I agree. But once in a while, I would eat a pepper that I thought came from a Roulette plant, and the heat would be TERRIBLE. I don't know; I also grew Primero peppers which are similar but very hot. Maybe occasionally I just confused a Roulette pepper with a Primero. Or, maybe it is like the Takara Shishito pepper, where the catalog says that ten percent of its fruits are spicy hot. Maybe ten percent of Roulette peppers are spicy hot; I don’t know. Anyway, occasionally I burned my mouth on a Roulette pepper. Could that be where the name comes from: it’s a gamble?

But most Roulette pepper have no (or almost no heat). Still, I like the flavor of the Habanada peppers better. The Habanada peppers are sweeter and crunchier and have more flavor. The Roulette peppers are a bit bland in comparison. As the catalog says, these plants are very high yielding, but I found all three reduced-heat habaneros to be high yielding.

Has a delightful resin/citrus taste, good crunch. Plant is vigorous, very vigorous, yield in zone 6 easily tops 50 peppers per plant, never counted but likely had some produce close to 100

We love this pepper. It was very prolific. There was tons of fruit. It produced fruit all summer long. All the seeds germinated. It grew fast. The taste is just excellent. It tastes like a habanero but with no heat. We will grow again!