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What is it?
Saffron
The spice we know as saffron are the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus Linnaeus flower, a plant in the Iris family.
This species is a perennial herbaceous plant, with a normal height of 10 to 25 cm, that has a corm (commonly called bulb or onion), from which the leaves and flowers sprout. The flower is formed by three red coloured stigma or threads joined to the base of the flow by the stylus and the stamen, that are intense yellow.
In Kashmir, this plant flowers in the second fortnight of October and the flowers must be harvested daily for a fortnight due to their extreme fragility.
The flowers or roses are deposited in baskets that conserve all their properties intact. On the same day they are collected, they are transferred to the farmers’ warehouses, where the stigmas are extracted from the flowers by hand. That process is known as peeling.
At the end of the day, the saffron must be dried to conserve its quality, an operation known as toasting, that is usually performed using hot air.
The characteristic components of saffron are:
- crocin, a carotenoid responsible for the yellow colouring.
- picrocrocin, responsible for the characteristic taste of the spice.
- safranal, a volatile compound that gives its unique aroma.
Standard ISO 3632 defines the quality of the saffron based on the chemical and physical characteristics of the spice, defining three categories according to the crocin content (colouring power), picrocrocin and safranal, as well as other parameters, such as humidity, ash, absence of floral remains and foreign bodies.
The spice we know as saffron are the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus Linnaeus flower, a plant in the Iris family.
This species is a perennial herbaceous plant, with a normal height of 10 to 25 cm, that has a corm (commonly called bulb or onion), from which the leaves and flowers sprout. The flower is formed by three red coloured stigma or threads joined to the base of the flow by the stylus and the stamen, that are intense yellow.
In Kashmir, this plant flowers in the second fortnight of October and the flowers must be harvested daily for a fortnight due to their extreme fragility.
The flowers or roses are deposited in baskets that conserve all their properties intact. On the same day they are collected, they are transferred to the farmers’ warehouses, where the stigmas are extracted from the flowers by hand. That process is known as peeling.
At the end of the day, the saffron must be dried to conserve its quality, an operation known as toasting, that is usually performed using hot air.
The characteristic components of saffron are:
- crocin, a carotenoid responsible for the yellow colouring.
- picrocrocin, responsible for the characteristic taste of the spice.
- safranal, a volatile compound that gives its unique aroma.
Standard ISO 3632 defines the quality of the saffron based on the chemical and physical characteristics of the spice, defining three categories according to the crocin content (colouring power), picrocrocin and safranal, as well as other parameters, such as humidity, ash, absence of floral remains and foreign bodies.
