the.com/saffron thread
The world's costliest spice, harvested by hand from a flower that blooms one autumn week.
means A single dried stigma of the saffron crocus, prized as a spice that lends food a deep golden color and distinctive aroma.
from From Old French 'safran,' borrowed from Arabic 'za'farān,' a name for the spice that traveled with it along medieval trade routes. The word 'thread' simply describes its form — each crocus flower yields just three slender crimson stigmas, plucked by hand, which is why so much labor hides in so little spice.
- flower part
- Just three crimson stigmas per crocus blossom
- insane labor
- 150,000 flowers make a single kilogram
- price tag
- Can outvalue gold gram for gram
- dawn raid
- Picked before sunrise to protect delicate threads
- ancient flex
- Cleopatra reportedly bathed in saffron-laced milk
kashmir saffron — crocus sativus from jammu & kashmir, india - produces 90% of world's saffron since medieval times
persian saffron — grown in khorasan province, iran - world's largest producer at ~400 tons annually
spanish saffron — la mancha region saffron with protected designation of origin status since 1987