is produced from the dried stigmas of a beautiful little autumn-flowering crocus (Crocus sativus) and it’s literally worth its weight in gold. This exotic spice lends its golden color, pungent flavour, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes to both sweet and savoury dishes, as well as drinks. The ancient Persians cultivated saffron in the 10th century BC as a dye, perfume and medicine. They added it to hot teas to treat bouts of melancholy. Cyrus the Great, founder of the first Persian Empire, had it sprinkled in his bath water as a royal body wash. Alexander the Great and his forces learned of this practice and, taken with saffron’s perceived curative properties, brought the custom back with them to Macedonia. Each hand-picked crocus blossom contains three red stigmas which are dried and fermented slightly to produce the spice. Harvesting and processing the stigmas is a fiddly and labour-intensive business, not suited to mechanisation. It takes 14,000 stigmas to produce one ounce (28 grams) of product, so you can see why saffron is the world’s most expensive spice! A little goes a very long way, however, so you can regularly enjoy its culinary and other properties without breaking your budget. We’re thrilled to share authentic Iranian saffron with Kiwi cooks. Click on the links to learn more about Pure Saffrona and our products.