Chile Guaque Guatemala

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Chile guaque is a type of hot pepper originating from Guatemala, and it's primarily cultivated in localities of the central highlands and some areas of Sololá Department in Guatemala. These chili peppers are eaten before they're completely ripened, when their color is dark green to black, or in their dried versions, which is the most popular and most known presentation.

The chili guaque is one of the most emblematic ingredients of Guatemalan cuisine. Guaque chile (Capsicum annuum var. annuum) is prized for its aroma, very special flavor, and moderate levels of spiciness. It's also an emblematic chili pepper of San Andres Itzapa in Guatemala, where locals use it for the preparation of a Guatemalan traditional dish called cherepe. In order to dry chiles guaques, they are laid out on the corrugated iron roofs under the sun. This chili is widely used in a large number of traditional Guatemalan recipes, in which we have to emphasize the traditional Guatemalan Tamal, but also in sauces, meats, traditional broths, marinades, and the very famous Guatemalan mole.

The fruit is consumed in an immature state when it presents a blackish color. The technical sheet of the plant that produces this appreciated Guatemalan chili describes it as follows: Prostrate habit, glabrous stems and leaves; green stems with purple-green nodes; the pedicel at anthesis is pendent; calyx with toothed margins; corolla white or greenish white; anthers pale blue, filament white; stigma at same level as anthers; absence of annular constriction at the junction of calyx and pedicel; fruits of intermediate to slope position, black in immature state due to the presence of anthocyanins, these disappearing when ripe, when they turn reddish; conical-shaped fruit, obtuse or cordate base, without neck at the base, with smooth to intermediate periphery and pungent ruto; straw seeds.
The dimensions of the fruit are: length 9.78 cm on average, with a range of 7.25 to 10.75 cm; width 3.23 cm range from 2.17 to 4.93 cm and a pericarp thickness of 1.93 mm on average and a range from 0.72 to 4.46 mm.

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