Aji Charapita x Pink Habanero Long

Aji Charapita x Pink Habanero Long is a modern Capsicum chinense hybrid that came out of the Open Pepper Breeding community project. The Peach Aji Charapita project page set up the cross in spring 2021 using Aji Charapita and Pink Habanero Long, and a September 2021 project update confirmed that ACP x PHL seed had been recovered and grown forward. By April 2026 the exact cross was also in public sale through Matt’s Peppers as an early cross.

The line was bred around a specific fruit goal. In the Open Pepper Breeding F2 distribution notes, PA008 was one of the Charapita-based families being selected for small, upright, pink fruit, and the family was also singled out for its promising plant architecture from Pink Habanero Long. Early grow reports described the cross as slower to develop than some sibling families, but structurally attractive, with the expectation that the F2 generation would be especially visually strong.

Public selection notes from later PA008 generations give the clearest picture of the plant and fruit. One selected branch from the family was described by the project breeder as upright, cream-coloured, with excellent sweetness and flavour. Another was described as having pendant yellow fruit with a slight bulge through the middle, excellent flavour, sweetness, and strong ripe colour. Separate grow reports from the same family also highlighted sulphur yellow-cream fruit in one PA008 plant, showing that the early population was throwing multiple attractive pale-fruited expressions rather than a single fixed type.

Flavour is one of the strongest recurring themes in the history of this cross. A later F4 descendant from the same PA008 family was described by the project organiser as one of the better selections of the season, with a Brix of 10, the highest seen in that season’s community project peppers, plus superb flavour and aroma and only mild heat concentrated in the seeds. Another grower working related selections from the same family described distinct corn-like flavour notes. In current circulation, a retail plant listing for the same hybrid under the name Skittles Sweet also described it as extremely productive, sweet, fruity, candy-like, and only mildly hot.

A major conflict exists in the fruit expression of the line because the publicly documented material comes from an early segregating breeding population rather than from one long-fixed final form. The project was selecting toward small upright pink fruit, but later public selections from the same cross also produced cream and yellow mature pods, including both upright and pendant forms. Across those sources, the core identity remains stable: a sweet-leaning Aji Charapita x Pink Habanero Long hybrid from the Open Pepper Breeding project, valued for flavour, pale-to-pink mature colours, and interesting selection potential.