Sancha — The Art of Chakli · Pune, Maharashtra
Pressed with Love,
Passed with Pride
A family recipe. A lifelong commitment to craft.
Where It Began
A Kitchen in Pune.
A Recipe Worth Keeping.
It started with a chakli mould — a simple brass sancha — passed down from my grandmother’s kitchen in Pune. Every Diwali, the house filled with the smell of stone-ground rice flour hitting hot oil, and the sound of perfect spirals forming one patient press at a time.
When I left for college and then work, the one thing I truly missed wasn’t a place — it was that taste. The specific kind of crisp that only comes from small-batch, hand-pressed chakli made the way it was always meant to be made.
Sancha began with one simple question: why should homemade mean harder to find?
We didn’t invent chakli. We simply refused to let it become ordinary.
The Name
Why Sancha?
Sancha • सांचा
noun · Marathi
A traditional mould or press — the brass instrument used to shape chakli into its distinctive spiral form. Passed between generations, each sancha carries the memory of every batch it has ever made.
We named our brand after this tool because, to us, it represents everything we believe in: the patient craft of making something properly, by hand, the way it has always been done.
The Sancha Difference
Small-Batch Craft
We make chakli in small, deliberate batches — never at scale, never rushed. Every batch is made to order, so what reaches you is fresh, not stockpiled. Mass production trades quality for volume. We refused that trade.
Family Recipe
Our spice blend has not changed in three generations. The proportions are not written anywhere — they live in the hands of whoever is making the batch. We intend to keep it that way.
Clean Ingredients
Stone-ground rice flour. Cold-pressed sesame oil. Hand-blended spices. Water. No preservatives, no artificial colour, no flavour enhancers — nothing your grandmother wouldn’t recognise on the label.
Thoughtful Packaging
Chakli needs to travel well — especially to NRIs thousands of miles from home. Our tins are nitrogen-sealed to lock in crispness, wrapped in recycled craft paper, designed to look as good on a shelf as they taste from one.
From Grain to Spiral
01 — Source
We begin with raw, unpolished rice sourced from trusted farms in Maharashtra — the same variety our family has always used, chosen for its starch content and natural fragrance.
02 — Stone-Grind
The rice is slow-ground in a traditional chakki stone mill. This keeps the flour cool during milling, preserving natural oils and the fine texture that gives our chakli its signature bite.
03 — Blend
The dough is hand-mixed with our family spice blend — cumin, sesame, ajwain, and a handful of things we won’t name here. The ratios have not been written down. They are simply known.
04 — Press
Each chakli is pressed by hand through the sancha mould, one spiral at a time, directly into hot oil. Hand pressure determines the shape; the shape determines the crunch. No shortcut exists for this step.
05 — Seal & Ship
Cooled fully, then nitrogen-sealed within the hour. Packed in our signature tins and dispatched within 24 hours of your order. From press to post — always fresh.
Chakli was never just a snack in our home. It was the first thing my mother made before Diwali — the smell that meant family was arriving. When I started Sancha, I wasn’t trying to build a business. I was trying to hold on to that feeling. One spiral at a time.
Founder, Sancha · Pune, Maharashtra
Ready to Try Sancha?
Small-batch chakli, shipped fresh. Taste what homemade is supposed to feel like.