PREMIUM KASHMIRI CHILI (POWDER)

Sprinkle half a teaspoon on a glass of water without stirring. Pure powder floats then sinks as a mass; a water-soluble dye sends coloured streaks running down through the water. A cotton ball dipped in liquid paraffin and rubbed on the powder will pick up bright pink if Rhodamine B is present.

Not quite. Deggi mirch is usually a blend, often Kashmiri-type chilli with a hotter variety added for bite. Kashmiri powder is a single chilli type chosen for colour and very low heat. Deggi mirch is generally the hotter of the two.

Genuine Kashmir-grown production is small, and much of what the Indian market calls Kashmiri chilli is Kashmiri-type or Byadgi-type chilli grown elsewhere and selected for the same low-heat, high-colour profile. We would rather say that plainly than imply an origin we cannot evidence.

Because it is a crop. Colour value varies with the harvest, the drying weather and the field. A powder that is identical in every batch has usually been standardised with dye. Batch variation is the honest signal.

No. Nothing is added at all. That is why freshly milled powder can clump a little in humid weather — there is no silicon dioxide in it to keep the grains apart. Break it up with a dry spoon.

It is milled to order. Whole pods sit in store; the powder is ground when you buy it or when the order is packed, not months earlier in a factory.

It does not become unsafe so much as it goes flat. Rub a pinch between your fingers and smell it: fresh powder releases aroma at once. If you have to work at it, the volatile oils have gone and it is time to replace it, however good the colour still looks.

Either, as long as it is airtight and opaque. Light does more damage than the container material. A steel dabba or a tinted jar in a cupboard beats a clear glass jar on the shelf above the hob every time.

Better not. Taking a cold jar in and out of a warm kitchen condenses moisture inside it, and damp powder cakes and can grow mould. A cool, dark cupboard is the right place.

Timing, mostly. A packet was ground in a factory months earlier and has been sitting since. Ours is milled to order from whole spice you can look at first, so the aromatic oils are still in the powder, and nothing is added at any point - no colour, no starch, no anti-caking agent.

Milled to order. Whole spice is kept in store and ground when you buy it or when your order is packed. We do not hold ground stock, which is the whole reason the shop has a mill in the customer area.