Hot Paper Lantern

Hot Paper Lantern is a named Capsicum chinense cultivar bred by Janika Eckert and sold through Johnny's Selected Seeds as an early, high-yielding habanero-type pepper. It became known as a northern-adapted habanero because it matures earlier and performs more reliably in cooler or shorter-season growing regions than many standard habaneros.

The plant is usually described as tall to medium-tall and productive, commonly around 45.5 to 61 cm high, with green leaves, green stems, white flowers with a slight green tint, and a strong tendency to set heavy crops. The pods are pendant, elongated, wrinkled, and lantern-shaped, usually about 7.5 to 10 cm long and about 19 to 32 mm wide.

Its fruit ripens from green through orange to a bright scarlet-red finish. The flesh is described as thin to medium-thick, which makes the pods useful both fresh and dried, and the flavour is commonly described as sweet, fruity, tropical, and slightly smoky before the heat fully develops.

Hot Paper Lantern is used in hot sauces, salsas, pepper jellies, marinades, soups, stews, curries, pickles, and dried seasoning powders. Its strong productivity, earlier maturity, and elongated pod shape helped it become a popular home-garden and market-garden habanero-type rather than a purely novelty chilli.

A major factual conflict exists around origin. Johnny's and the North America cultivar listing identify Hot Paper Lantern as a named cultivar bred by Janika Eckert, while other live sources describe it as Peruvian in origin or as descending from Peruvian habanero-type material.