What Is Saffron?
Saffron is a precious spice in the world. The thread-like red stigmas and the yellow hue they impart are quite literally the stuff of impressive. No matter how much information is said about the spice saffron, a lot of us still don’t know what to do with it or whether it’s worth the high cost. Here we talk about everything about saffron.
Believed native to the Mediterranean, Asia, and Iran, the saffron crocus has long been. Cultivated in Iran and Kashmir (Pakistan and India). For various Ages, saffron has been worth much more than its weight in gold; it is still the most expensive spice in the world.
1. Where does saffron come from? Checked
Saffron is Refined chiefly in Iran, and also grown in Spain, France, Italy (on the lower spurs of the Apennines Range), and parts of India. Three stigmas are handpicked from each flower, spread on a flat space and placed in the dryer. A pound (0.45 kilogram) of saffron represents 170000 blossoms. Saffron contains 0.5 to 1 percent essential oil, the principal component of which is picrocrocin and Colored substances called crocin.
Saffron is used for cooking purposes as well as for medicine, color, and perfume. In terms of cuisine, saffron is considered both because of its fragrant taste and because of its beautiful golden color
What Does Saffron Taste Like?
This Precious spice has a Bitter and Sweet, earthy flavor that can have subtle notes of fruit, honey, or flowers. The Lasting taste and somewhat indescribable flavor of saffron are due to the chemicals safranal and picrocrocin, which give the plant its distinct taste and bright yellow tone.
How to Store Saffron?
Saffron should be stored in an airtight container in a cool, dark place, to keep its freshness for a long time. To Increase its shelf life possible, Keep saffron in a container without light, such as a Boxes container or glass jar wrapped in foil, as light exposure can deplete the flavor at a faster rate.
Saffron Health Benefits?
Saffron as an herbal has been used as a Material in medicine for thousands of years. Packed with a range of antioxidants like crocetin, safranal, and crocin, saffron help to protect the body from harmful free radicals that cause several ailments and diseases.
In addition to the many bodily health benefits of saffron, saffron is also good for the Brain. Both crocin and crocetin contain brain-boosting properties that protect the health of brain cells and improve carefulness.
To increase Positive Energy and vitality: In low libido, saffron aids as a sexual stimulant and can be consumed in an amount of a pinch in a glass of milk (Or Milkshake) at bedtime.
Why saffron is expensive?
To harvest the saffron, you need a lot of handwork to pick up the flowers, and separate them — saffron is dehydrated or dry stigma. The stigma is the female part of the bloom. We have to separate that stigma, and dry it. At all of these procedures, you need hand works, laborers. We prefer to harvest the flowers by hand because we don’t want to damage other parts of the plants.
The yield of saffron is really low. You have to hire a lot of workers to harvest 3 pounds of saffron per acre.
We’ll need to hand-pick 170,000 flowers to create just one pound of saffron. The mellow purple flowers only bloom over 6 weeks from September to December. There’s also a specific time of day to harvest them
When we have higher relative humidity in the air, it can affect the saffron quality. It’s Necessary to avoid sunlight, it can break the chemical structure in the saffron. So, we harvest the saffron as an early bird in the early morning.
Why We choose Iranian Saffron over Kashmir or Spanish?
There are too many reasons why we choosing Iranian saffron that would benefit you. at first Iranian saffron is produced repeatedly in bulk for thousands of years, this continuity of harvest, means the farmers know their crop from inside out, they know how to deal with the time of drought and heavy rains, and they have the knowledge that no other country can provide in the growing of saffron. Iran produces the vast majority of the world’s saffron, depending on whose figures you look at they produce between 80-95% of all saffron grown.
If we search the internet for Texts and articles on Kashmir saffron we will find various crises, extended periods of bad weather affecting crop quality or to do with the adulteration of their crops, even articles about Iranian saffron being smuggled into India to supplement the Kashmiri crop, there always seems to be one issue or another. All these issues can lead to unstable situation in the quality of their crops.
Iranian saffron is of the same quality but is less expensive at the source. India has high taxation on Iranian saffron to protect their own Kashmir market, and quite rightly so. This, however, has led to smugglers using ‘mules’ in the same way that drug smugglers do. This leads to Kashmiri and Iranian saffron being mixed and sold as Kashmiri saffron, which, if you buy saffron you will know is much higher in price. However you can pay a lot more money and you could be using Iranian saffron anyway.
Buying Iranian saffron means that you access to high-quality unadulterated saffron from the homeland of saffron and where the vast majority of saffron is grown. Iranian saffron remains at a reasonable price compared to Spanish, Kashmiri and Italian saffron.