Our bird’s eye chili powder is ground from organic Capsicum annuum peppers. Bird’s eye chili is a member of the diverse Capsicum genus and is commonly found in Ethiopian and southeast Asian dishes. Also called, Thai chili, these peppers are relatively small but quite hot with a hint of fruitiness. Bird’s eye chili powder provides a spicy kick to stir fry’s, omelets, stews, and marinades.
Chili is the Aztec name for Capsicum annuum. It has been used both as a food and a medicine by Native Americans for over 9000 years. The Capsicum family includes bell peppers, red peppers, paprika, and pimento, but the most famous medicinal members of the family are cayenne and chile. The tasty hot peppers have long been used in many of the world’s cuisines, but their greatest use in health comes from, surprisingly, conventional medicine. Capsicum annuum is a member of the nightshade family, Solanaceae.
Our bird’s eye chili powder is typically between 75,000 – 125,000 HU and considered very pungent. The pungency of a chili pepper has historically been measured using the Scoville scale, which assigns heat units (SHU or HU) using a subjective assessment to determine the concentration of capsaicin in a pepper. Capsaicin is an active component of chili peppers, responsible for the warming and occasional burning sensations felt. The Scoville scale remains the most common way of classifying the heat of a pepper, although modern, lab-based testing methods are now being used
