Thai chili

Bird's eye chili
Several bird's eye chilis on a shrub
Species	Capsicum annuum
Cultivar	Bird's Eye
Heat	Very hot
Scoville scale	100,000–225,000 SHU

Bird's eye chili, bird eye chili, bird's chili, chile de arbol, or Thai chili is a chili pepper, a cultivar from the species Capsicum annuum, commonly found in Ethiopia and Southeast Asia. It is often confused with a similar-looking chili derived from the species Capsicum frutescens, the cultivar "siling labuyo". Capsicum frutescens are generally smaller and characteristically point to the sky. Bird's eye chili can also be found in India, particularly in Mizoram, Meghalaya, Assam, and Kerala. It is used in traditional dishes of the Kerala cuisine. This cultivar is also found in rural areas of Sri Lanka (known as කොච්චි (kōcci) ), where it is used as a substitute for green chilis. It is also a main ingredient in kochchi sambal, a salad made using freshly scraped coconut ground with bird's eye chilis and seasoned with salt and lime juice. It is used extensively in Thai, Malaysian, Singaporean, Lao, Khmer, Indonesian, and Vietnamese cuisine.

Some English speakers also refer to this cultivar as Thai hot, Thai dragon, and boonie pepper.

The bird's eye chili plant is a perennial with small, tapering fruits, often two or three, at a node. The fruits are very pungent.

The bird's eye chili is small, but is quite hot (piquant). It measures around 100,000–225,000 Scoville units, which is at the lower half of the range for the hotter habanero but still many times more spicy than a jalapeño.