Saffron Crocus Crocus sativus the most expensive spice in the world! In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the extraordinary spice, saffron but its use in culinary and medicinal applications and as a dye goes well back into antiquity. Why is saffron so expensive? It takes 200,000 bright red stigmas and styles hand-picked from 70,000 Crocus sativus flowers to produce 0.45 kg of saffron! The tonnages Saffron – the bright red stigmas and styles of produced in major saffron producing countries such Crocus sativus. Image: Serpico / CC BY-SA as Iran, India and Greece, are extraordinary, almost https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 unbelievable. The actual place of origin of saffron is unknown but believed to be in Iran, or possibly Greece and/or Mesoptomia (an historical region of Western Asia encompassing the Tigris and Euphrates river systems); Crocus cartwrightianus, from the Attica Peninsula of Greece, is considered to be the probable wild progenitor of domesticated saffron. Saffron is a sterile triploid form of C. cartwrightianus; it doesn’t produce seeds and can only reproduce Crocus cartwrightianus Peter coxhead / CC BY-SA vegetatively with human help. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) The use of saffron spans more than 4000 years, with the earliest reference to saffron about 2300 BC when Sargon, ruler of the Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, was born in a village called Azupirano, which may mean “Saffron Town”. Saffron was cultivated in Crete in ancient times (c. 1700 BC), evidence in a fresco, the Saffron Gatherer, in the Palace of Minos at Knossos, from the Middle Minoan Period. Saffron gatherer, fresco, Akrotiri, Greece If it takes 70,000 Crocus sativus flowers to produce 0.45 kg of saffron, you would need more than 155 million flowers to produce one ton of saffron – and remember, all have to be handpicked. What backbreaking work that would be! Iran is the world’s largest grower of saffron, with its 430 tons worth about $USD 100 m. The balance of world production comes from India (22 tons), with Greece, Afghanistan, Morocco, Spain, Italy, China and Azerbaijan contributing a further 20 tons. The internet has numerous designs for machines specifically designed for harvesting saffron flowers, but we have found little evidence that any have yet been successful. Adulteration is not only a modern phenomenon and the value of saffron is such that it has long been the target of fraud and mislabeling practices. In Europe in the Middle Ages, the Safranschou Code was established so that those convicted of saffron adulteration were condemned to death. Adulteration can include colouring the yellow stamens which are both colourless and tasteless, or soaking the saffron threads in honey or vegetable oil to increase their weight. High quality saffron from Kashmir, for example, can be adulterated with poorer quality saffron from other countries. More recently, a pigment extracted from fruits of gardenia has been used to adulterate saffron. This pigment contains flavonoids and crocines, very similar to those naturally occurring in saffron and so can be extremely difficult to identify. Safranal is the volatile compound responsible for much of the distinctive fragrance of saffron. The pungency of saffron comes from the glycosylated monoterpene picrocrocin. When saffron is dried after harvest, the heat together with enzymatic action splits picrocrocin to yield free safranal and a wealth of colour and flavour. Safranal has a variety of pharmacological effects, including as an anticonvulsant, but that is a story for another day. Saffron harvest in Kashmir Rediff News: https://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-pics-world-s-costliest-spice-blooms-in-kashmir/20121109.htm#2 Distribution map of 10 species of Crocus across Europe, North Africa and Asia, Nalagtus / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) Crocus grow from corms, swollen, bulb-like underground stems that make them well adapted to surviving extreme weather conditions, heat and drought, or bitter cold. They belong in the Iris family (Iridaceae) and many species are popular as garden plants and grown world-wide. There are about 90 species, distributed from North Africa and Central and Southern Europe right across Central Asia to Xinjiang Province in north-western China. Yellow Crocus Meneerke bloem / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) Bosmali I, Ordoudi S A, Tsimidou M Z, Madesis P. 2017. Greek PDO saffron authentication studies using species specific molecular markers. Food Research International 100(1): 889-907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2017.08.001 Behinexir Company: https://behinexir.com/global-saffron-market/ Caiola M G, Caputo P, Zanier R. 2004. RAPD Analysis in Crocus sativus L. Accessions and Related Crocus Species. Biologia Plantarum 48: 375–380 Rubio-Moraga A, Castillo-López R, Gómez-Gómez L, et al. 2009. Saffron is a monomorphic species as revealed by RAPD, ISSR and microsatellite analyses. BMC Res Notes 2: 189. https://doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-2-189 Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron Alison Downing, Brian Atwell, Kevin Downing, Department of Biological Sciences .