Even
in the expensive world of spices,
saffron
stands out.And real saffron can cost you over $10,000 per kilogram. Sought
after for thousands of years as a spice, a dye, and a medicine,
you
need over 150 flowers to make just 1 gram of saffron. And the stuff you have at
home in the cupboard could well be fake. So just what makes this spice so
expensive?
Saffron
is the red stigma of the Crocus sativus. Each crocus has three small stigmas
that
have to be picked carefully by hand. This minuscule harvest means that the
amount
you
get from each flower is roughly 0.006 grams. No machine can do the delicate
work required
to
harvest these thin threads. And it can take 40 hours of hard manual labor
to
produce just 1 kilogram of high-quality saffron. Growing the plants isn't
exactly easy either. David Smale: They're actually called corms,
but
they're like a bulb, basically. Like, you know, a flower bulb. So, the more
flowers per bulb you can get,
and
the bigger the flowers, really,
and
that all depends on how you look after it,
how
you grow it, the climate .So, for example, if it rains just before harvest,
we
get bigger flowers.
If
it's very dry just before harvest ,the flowers are smaller.
So
you look after the crop during the year by hand, and you pick the flowers by
hand, and you process the flowers by hand .Once the crop starts flowering,
harvesters
have to work fast
to
make sure they can pick it all in time. Almost all of the saffron planted
can
flower within one week of the year. And to maintain the quality,
the
flowers are best picked first thing in the morning. Quality is key when growing
such a precise crop .And the taste of the saffron depends on
the
rainfall, temperature, and soil. Kashmir is famed for producing some of the highest-quality
saffron in the world. And that small strand of saffron
that
you harvest as a result of all of this work? Well, to get the highest grades, you
might need to throw half of it away.
The
most expensive, highest-grade saffron is generally made up of just the very
tips of the stigma.
In
Iran, where over 90% of the world's saffron is produced, there are four grades.
The lowest grade is the bunch. That's the entire strand that's pulled from the
flower, from the dark red tips to the yellow base.
In
higher grades, the yellow strand is removed, leaving only a long strand of pure
red. That means a kilo of saffron could be made up
of
450,000 strands. And to get that many strands, you need 150,000 flowers. And
those flowers take up a lot of growing space.
Cumin,
for example, can yield 600 kilos per acre. Nutmeg gets you around 350 kilograms
in the same space.
Use
that land for saffron instead, and you get a 1.8 kilogram harvest. Despite the
incredible amount of work and space this crop takes up, demand for the spice is
increasing, and over 200 metric tons of saffron threads
are
harvested worldwide each year. That's the result of about 30 billion flowers. Demand
for the threads is so high that many adulterate or produce fake saffron.
Threads
that look real at first glance could actually be made of corn silks, coconut
fibers, or even horsehair. Synthetic colorings are also usedto dye the
lower-grade stigmas and sell them as high-grade saffron.
In
late 2019, a fake-saffron crime ring was uncovered in the UK,
which
led to a two-year international investigation. And back in 2010,
Spain
exported 190,000 kilos of saffron, worth $50 million, but the country's total
production amounted to only 1,500 kilos. At the time, a local farmers union
reported that up to 90% of Spanish saffron exports were fraudulent.
The
industry has attempted to crack down on these fake and mislabeled products, but
the problem still persists, and the market for fake saffron
is
closing many real saffron farmers down. So, what does real saffron actually
taste like?
Smale:
I've been asked that one by a lot of people over the years.
It's
so difficult to describe,which is, I think, part of its fascination for people
and
why it ended up as an expensive product,because it is - it just adds something.
It's
a bittersweet flavor;it's an earthy flavor.
Trying
to replicate it is very difficult.And we've - you know, people have tried to do
that, I know.
While
saffron is just as popular as ever,
it's
been sought after throughout history.
In
Greek mythology, Zeus sometimes slepton a bed of saffron.And Cleopatra was said
to bathe in saffron and milk, using the dyeing properties of the spice
as
an ancient fake tan. Every culture seems to have its own myth about the spice's
powers,
and
in the 14th century, saffron's popularity skyrocketed across Europe
when
it was thought to be a possible cure for the plague. But there's a recent
looming problem
for
saffron and its price: climate change.In Kashmir, production has dropped
significantly,
and
many farmers are selling their land instead. Sajad Rafeeq: We had, you know,
very few rains
in
the last, I think, four or five years. The temperature and the climatehas
completely changed in Kashmir. When I was a kid, when we used to goto the
saffron farms to pick up the saffron ,it would at least take us two days
to
pick up the saffron from the same fields which, you know, nowadays you could
just pick up in half an hour.
I'm
very emotional about the saffron, because this is a cultural identity of
Kashmir and especially the people of Pampore. But the thing is that the
production is declining, and the lands
are being sold .Houses are being built on the saffron land.
So
it really disheartens me. Between 2017 and '18,
saffron
production in the region fell almost 70%, from 16.5 metric tons down to 5.2.
And
with continuing droughts and climate change, this harvest could become even
more rare.
