What is saffron and why is it so costly?

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Saffron is a spice derived from the stigma of the saffron crocus flower (Crocus sativus). A native of Persia with a history of cultivation and use spanning over 3,000 years, it has long been one of the world’s costliest spices by weight, with a kilo of saffron today costing about Rs. 4,00,000/- in India. The name derives from Latin safranum, which in turn comes from the Persian word zafaran. It is known as kesar in Hindi and kunkumapoo in Tamil and Malayalam. The bulk of the world’s saffron grows in the Eurasian region bounded by the Mediterranean Sea in the southwest to India and China in the northeast. The world’s leading producers are Iran, Spain, India, Greece, China and Morocco. In India, saffron is grown in Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, and Kashmiri saffron is considered to be of the highest quality worldwide.

Crocus plants flower in autumn, and the flowers are harvested by hand. To get a single kilogram of saffron, it would be required to harvest about 1,50,000 flowers – a feat requiring no less than 40 hours of labour! This is because each flower yields only 3 stigmas or threads of saffron. It takes 14,000 such stigmas to make up just one ounce of the spice. Manually extracting large numbers of minute stigmas is a laborious and time-consuming task. Once harvested, the stigmas must be quickly dried and the dried spice sealed in airtight glass containers. The tedious, highly labour-intensive production process and the scarcity of saffron are what make it so costly.

Over the centuries, saffron has been prized by various cultures for its culinary, medicinal and other uses. It features in Ayurvedic remedies for arthritis, asthma and infertility, and was used by ancient Egyptians to treat kidney problems. Saffron is widely used in Indian, European, Turkish and Arab cuisines as a culinary seasoning and to colour foods. It is an essential ingredient in high-quality, milk-based confectioneries and Mughlai dishes where it imparts a rich colour and flavour. Apart from its use as food and medicine, saffron is also utilised in dyes and perfumes.