It is the star ingredient in great classics of international cuisine such as bouillabaisse (typical Provençal fish soup), Milanese-style risotto, and paella. It is also a colorant, a cosmetic, natural medicine, and, a luxury good since its price can reach close to 30,000 euros per kilo. We are talking about pure saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, but also the most powerful, versatile, and even mythological. If you are interested in buying saffron, follow this article to find out more about this luxury spice!

The “Red Gold”

The price of saffron is and has always been high. John O’Connell recounts in The Book of Spices that back in the 13th century the Countess of Leicester paid 10 to 14 shillings for half a kilo of saffron for six months. Meanwhile, the pepper was just over 2 shillings and the coriander a handful of pence. Today, a kilo of this luxury ingredient can cost from 5,000 to 30,000 euros.

A Special “Limited Edition”

The stellar price of saffron is due both to its indisputable value in the kitchen, as it gives color, flavor, and aroma to each dish, and to its complicated production process.

For starters, saffron hardly grows spontaneously. Being a triploid plant with an odd number of chromosomes, it needs the hand of man to reproduce and develop. Each bulb takes two years to flower and normally gives a single flower, in the month of September. The flowers grow very low on the ground and are harvested by hand first thing in the morning before they open and are damaged by rain, snow, or sun.

Each flower only has three stigmas – the spice itself, which must be carefully separated by hand from the flowers within twelve hours of harvesting. To get a kilo of saffron, up to 250,000 flowers are needed. In addition, it must be taken into account that each harvest does not exceed 50 kilos. All these factors make saffron a limited-edition spice by nature.

‘Asfar, When Luxury is in the Name

Pure saffron has been known since ancient times and since then it has been synonymous with luxury. Of oriental origin, this plant immediately achieved great commercial value in Europe as a natural colorant for clothing. Its name, similar in many languages, comes from the Arabic word sahafaran, which in turn derives from ‘asfar, meaning yellow.

The intense and luminous yellow hue that the stigmas of this plant are capable of providing to fabrics made its fortune among the privileged classes, acquiring both caste and ritual significance. In ancient times, saffron yellow was associated with royalty and the rites of fertility, abundance, and strength. In Asia, saffron is a symbol of hospitality and well-being, and in India, it is used to mark the foreheads of those belonging to the highest castes.

The Best Pure Saffron in the World

The coloring power of saffron is the main indicator (besides the flavor and aroma) of its quality. The higher the values ​​of crocin, the carotenoid responsible for the color of the stigmas, the higher the category to which saffron belongs.

In Spain, the highest category is the Coupé, with values ​​above 190. Iran is the world’s largest producer of pure saffron and can boast two of the most sought-after varieties in the world. The Sargol, the completely red saffron, without yellow or white parts, which are removed during the peeling of the flower, separating the stigmas from the style. Its crocin values ​​are higher than 220 and its price is around 15,000 euros per kilo.

The Negin, meaning “ring diamond”, is considered the best saffron in the world: it has the same high quality and intense color as Sargol, but it is a little longer (about 1.5 cm), thick, almost unbroken, and very pure.

Pure Saffron: A Kind of Legend

Saffron has always been a spice with great power of seduction. The Greeks made a place for it in their prolific mythology, linking the birth of the saffron flower – whose scientific name is Crocus Sativus – with the blood that flowed from a wound on Krokos’s forehead while he was playing with a disk with his friend Hermes.

Another legend tells that a knight of the Crusades brought with him to England a single bulb of saffron from the Holy Land, hidden in a hole in his staff, in order to do some good for his country. In the Middle Ages, newlyweds used to make wreaths of saffron flowers to ward off madness.

For a long time, it has been trusted in the medicinal virtues of this plant as well as in the culinary ones. Today saffron is used mainly in the kitchen, but it is still attributed to the ability to facilitate digestion and blood flow in the pelvic area, among others.

The Fake Saffron

Like any respectable luxury good, pure saffron is the victim of numerous counterfeits. The most common is the one that is carried out thanks to the safflower or safflower flowers, commonly called American saffron and bastard saffron.

The flowers of this oriental plant are used above all to color dishes, its flavor being more bitter than saffron. The flowers of calendula, arnica, and royal poppy, opportunely cut, also serve to “simulate” the stigmas of saffron.

“Indian saffron” is nothing but turmeric, a spice that is obtained from a root similar to that of ginger and is also characterized by a beautiful yellow color, the only trait that it shares with saffron. Sometimes some oil is added to saffron or it is sold without drying it properly so that its weight and consequently its price increase.

Spice in the Boudoir

Saffron is a very old beauty secret. In Crete, it was used to make lipstick and perfume and in Egypt to freshen bed linen. As always when talking about beauty there is an anecdote starring Cleopatra. They say that the famous Egyptian queen, master of the arts of seduction, bathed in mare’s milk flavored with saffron before a love relationship.

The Romans burned saffron as incense, medieval monks used it with a mixture of egg whites to make their manuscripts shine like gold, and Venetian women in the 16th century used this spice to give their hair a hue worthy of mention.

Where to Buy Pure Saffron From?

Sharona’s products are manufactured by experts at a reasonable price and product quality guarantee, which is why after buying Iranian saffron from us, you will not regret your choice. Original saffron without intermediaries by our trading group, which is active in the field of producing all kinds of saffron, gives you the best quality and the right price at the same time.

For more information about the quality of the products, contact us at +982122179204.