Golden fruit, clean heat, and a flavour that feels like you’ve stumbled onto something rare.
El Oro de Ecuador might sound like a lost El Dorado, but that’s more or less how it felt in the greenhouse this year — a small flash of treasure I planted almost by accident. I only put it in because I’d found a spare pot in April and thought, fine, why not, one more.
Only later did I realise it’s one of those influential chillies everyone in Ecuador seems to know but somehow had completely slipped past me.
A mountain chilli too, properly bred for cooler nights in the Andean foothills, which probably explains why it stayed cheerful long after some of my fussier chinense varieties started sulking. Even now, at the tail end of the season, it’s still throwing out flowers as if it hasn’t checked the calendar.
The plant itself behaved exactly as a baccatum should, which is to say: utterly incapable of good posture. I’ve yet to meet a baccatum that doesn’t look like it’s had a run-in with a stiff breeze and decided to grow sideways out of sheer mischief.
They go into the bright ají sauces served with simple meals, they’re pickled whole in vinegar with garlic or herbs, and they’re often dried and crushed into seasoning mixes. In some regions people even use them for small stuffed snacks or side dishes.
They’re wonderfully forgiving once they get going, but they do like to thread themselves into the bones of the greenhouse, knotting around stakes and staging and anything else that dares to be vertical. Easy to grow, yes — but only if you don’t mind a bit of gentle wrestling and the odd moment of “how on earth did you get up there?”
The pods began a bright emerald green, almost spherical and surprisingly pretty even before they ripened. Then they shifted into this glowing amber-gold, the exact colour that makes you stop halfway down the aisle and say, right, who’s responsible for that? I’ve grown a lot of oddities over the years, and many of the more ornamental types look better than they taste, but the Oro manages both.
Flavour Profile: El Oro de Ecuador
▶ Heat (Hotness): 4. The heat nips in like a pocket-sized mountain spirit with a grievance — quick, bright, and gone before you’ve finished saying “who let that in?”. It’s the culinary equivalent of being lightly head-butted by a llama that considers you part of the scenery. Short, surprising, and oddly polite about it.
▶ Sweetness: 4. A small, golden sweetness rises through the middle — the kind that reminds you of honey scraped off a spoon by someone who clearly doesn’t trust you with the rest of the jar. It’s gentle, almost apologetic, like it wandered in by mistake and is too polite to leave.
▶ Fruitiness: 8. Here the pod stops behaving itself entirely. A burst of pineapple comes charging in, waving its arms like a tourist who took one look at altitude sickness advice and ignored all of it. Then a sleek flash of apricot appears, gliding past as though auditioning for a perfume advert about fruit that’s seen things. It’s bright, cheerful, and ever so slightly deranged — but always delicious.
▶ Texture (Firmness): 8. Crisp, tidy flesh with a clean snap, as if the chilli has spent its life practising for this one moment. Inside, the seeds sit in disciplined ranks, looking inexplicably smug — like schoolchildren posing for a photo just after someone’s let a guinea pig loose behind the camera.
▶ Juiciness: 5. A modest, refreshing juiciness — not a torrent, not a disappointment. More like the discreet sip of water you take when pretending you’ve just climbed a hill on purpose. It carries the flavour without making a scene.
▶ Aftertaste (Complexity): 7. The finish is quietly astonishing. All that bright pineapple and apricot settles into something soft and steady — a warmth so reassuring it feels almost divine, like the universe briefly patting you on the shoulder to say, yes, you chose well. There’s a tiny mineral shimmer at the end, the faintest hint of gold dust… though whether it’s the real thing or fool’s gold hardly matters, because the flavour delivers exactly what it promises: unexpected brightness, deep comfort, and the irresistible sense that you’ve just struck something rare.
In fact, it surprised me — and that’s getting harder to do. The flavour is fresh and light, almost pineapple-sharp with a touch of apricot, and the heat sits in that comfortable 10,000–30,000 SHU range. Warm enough to wake you up, not so hot you immediately regret your decisions.
The flavour caught me off guard in the best way, so I did what I always do: looked up what people in Ecuador actually do with it. In the southern highlands — Azuay, Loja, and El Oro — these baccatum types turn up in all sorts of everyday dishes.
They go into the bright ají sauces served with simple meals, they’re pickled whole in vinegar with garlic or herbs, and they’re often dried and crushed into seasoning mixes. In some regions people even use them for small stuffed snacks or side dishes. It’s one of those chillies that earns its place simply because it works in almost any form you put it in.
It’s one of those genuinely multipurpose chillies that slips into local food culture because it’s easy to grow in the cooler valleys and tastes good in practically every form. Nothing romanticised — just straightforward, everyday knowledge from people who’ve been cooking with baccatums far longer than any of us.
Growing it here made me appreciate baccatums all over again. They’re the jokers of the chilli world — sprawling, unruly, occasionally infuriating — but they reward you with flavours you simply don’t get from the tropical types. A kind of lifted fruitiness, bright rather than brooding, and always that sense that the plant is more interested in living its best life than behaving itself.
I’ll definitely grow another next year, and this time I won’t leave it so late. If it gave me this much fruit from an afterthought in April, I can only imagine what it’ll do with a proper head start. A mountain chilli that tastes like sunshine — hardly surprising it’s a household staple in the Andes, and now apparently in my greenhouse too.
El Oro is one of those rare chillies that feels like a little strike of gold — bright, fruity, and endlessly handy. If you want a plant that’ll earn its keep next year, the £1.95 pre-order is open and well worth claiming early… stake your claim now.
World of Chillies was set up by Sarah Hunt in 2011 to promote chilli growing and the enjoyment of everything hot and spicy.
UK Company No. 07860204.
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▶ 1. Heat (Hotness): The defining characteristic for most people. Is it mild, medium, or hot? How does the heat develop—immediate or lingering?
▶ 2. Sweetness: The balance of natural sugars. Some chillies have a sweetness that complements their heat and makes them versatile in cooking.
▶ 3. Fruitiness: The aromatic, flavour-forward profile. Does it taste tropical, citrusy, or like berries? This quality often gives chillies their distinctive edge.
▶ 4. Crunchiness or Firmness (texture): Freshness matters. Is the chilli crisp and crunchy, soft and pliable, or somewhere in between?
▶ 5. Juiciness: How much moisture does the chilli release when bitten into? This can influence its suitability for fresh eating or cooking.
▶ 6. Aftertaste (Complexity): What lingers after the initial bite? Is there a smokiness, an earthiness, or a clean, simple finish? This separates "nice" chillies from truly memorable ones.
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