If you've ever wondered why a restaurant curry has that deep red colour without being blisteringly hot, or why a jar of "extra spicy" pickle makes your eyes water instantly, the answer is usually about chilli variety, not just quantity. Our Red Chilli Powder is sourced from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh — India's largest chilli trading hub — and understanding the difference between its two signature varieties, Teja and Byadgi, tells you a lot about what's actually in your spice tin.
Guntur: The Chilli Capital
Guntur's chilli market — centred around the Guntur Mirchi Yard, one of Asia's largest chilli trading markets — handles a huge share of India's dried red chilli trade every season. Farmers across Andhra Pradesh bring their harvest here, and traders sort it by variety, colour, heat level, and moisture content before it reaches processors like us.
Teja: The Heat
Teja chilli is grown widely across Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and is known primarily for one thing: heat. On the Scoville scale, Teja typically measures in the 50,000–75,000 SHU range — significantly hotter than most everyday cooking chillies. It has a thinner skin and a sharp, pungent bite. Teja is what gives a chilli powder its "kick."
Byadgi: The Colour
Byadgi chilli, originally from Karnataka but widely traded through Guntur, is almost the opposite story. It's comparatively mild — often under 10,000 SHU — but its deep, wrinkled skin releases an intense, brick-red colour when ground. Byadgi is the chilli professional chefs reach for when they want a dish to look fiery red without actually being fiery.
Why We Use Both
A chilli powder made purely from Teja would be aggressively hot but pale. One made purely from Byadgi would look striking but taste flat. Our Red Chilli Powder blends the two in a fixed ratio built to give you real heat and real colour in the same spoon — the way most serious South Indian kitchens have always done it, just standardised into a consistent pack.
A Note on Heat Tolerance
Heat tolerance varies a lot between households, which is one reason we keep our Teja-to-Byadgi ratio fixed rather than adjusting it seasonally — a dish that worked for you last month should work the same way this month too. If you're cooking for a heat-sensitive palate, start with half the quantity a recipe calls for and adjust up from there.
Sourcing Transparency
Because chilli prices at Guntur can move quickly with each new arrival season, we track the modal price from the Guntur mandi on our Market Intelligence page daily — the same data we use to decide when to buy. Sanvi Heritage Red Chilli Powder is available in 50g and 200g packs, ground fresh from this Teja–Byadgi blend.