Yes! And so, if you want to be able to give "bubba" a pepper he'll
find hot, you need to know what he considers hot, not how many
Scoville units are in that particular pepper.


An added variable which makes the scoville unit rather less definite anyway is that different varieties are hotter or less hot depending on how they are grown. Simply assuming that a habanero will be rated as 3 zillion on a standard scale makes too many assumptions. I was happily munching on some relatively mild chillis the other day ( grown by myself ) and suddenly came across one that hurt. If all your friends do tests each time they eat a pepper so that they know exactly how many units on the scale suits them, and if you then test your peppers as well, bingo, otherwise the Old El Paso method is probably more 'real world' useful.