Guntur Chilli Teja S17 & Sannam S4

Andhra Pradesh grows the chilli that most of the world's ground product is made from. Teja for heat, Sannam for balance.

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Whole dried red chillies drying in an open yard in Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh · HS 0904.21

The Centre of India’s Chilli Trade

Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, together with neighbouring Khammam in Telangana, is where the bulk of India's export chilli is grown, dried and traded. The scale is the point: a buyer sourcing here is drawing on the deepest pool of graded, export-ready dried chilli anywhere in the country, with the cold-storage and sorting capacity that follows from it.

It is also why Guntur names have become de facto trade grades. When a specification says "Teja" or "Sannam S4", it is describing a variety with a known and reasonably stable heat and colour profile — which is far more useful to a formulator than a generic "red chilli".

Teja or Sannam?

These are not interchangeable, and choosing by price alone usually means choosing wrong.

Guntur chilli varieties — commercial profile
VarietyHeatColourTypically bought for
Teja (S17)HighModeratePungency-led blends, capsaicin extraction
Sannam (S4)MediumGoodGeneral grinding, powder and flakes

Teja is the hot one and the variety most often specified where the finished product has to register as spicy. Sannam is the workhorse of the ground-chilli trade — enough heat to matter, enough colour to look right, and consistent enough to blend against.

If you need colour without heat, neither is the answer: that is Byadgi, grown in Karnataka.

Whole Dried Red Chillies Red Chilli Powder Byadgi Chilli

Harvest, Drying and Grading

Guntur chilli is picked ripe-red between February and April, then sun-dried on open yards for five to eight days to 10–11% moisture, turned daily so the colour develops evenly rather than scorching on one side.

After drying, pods are stemmed, hand-sorted to remove discoloured and broken material, and graded by size and variety. Stem-cut and stemless are both available; stemless costs more to produce but lifts your usable yield at the mill and cuts the foreign-matter deduction.

Every lot is tested for Scoville heat, ASTA colour, aflatoxin and Sudan dyes before packing — Indian chilli attracts additional scrutiny at EU borders, and the time to find a problem is before the container is sealed.

Bulk Order Enquiries

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