Garam in garam masala is a bit more like warming hot. It’s meant to stoke the digestive fire. So it’s more the hot of ginger or black pepper. When something is hot like capsicum, you’d hear it was teekhu. Garam masala isn’t one recipe of course, but you start to see the same herbs and spices being considered.

You can easily have a garam masala that has no capsicum in it.