Saffron, (Crocus sativus) is a flowering plant that produces an expensive spice. Saffron’s taste and fragrance result from the chemical picrocrocin. Safranal gives saffron its distinctive odor, while picrocrocin determines its taste. Spanish saffron is widely considered of higher quality than that produced elsewhere, though it also tends to be more expensive.

How Saffron Extract is Made

Saffron extract is widely used in cooking, especially in the Mediterranean region. Dried threads are widely used in different types of food products for adding colour and flavour. Saffron extract is also used for medicinal purposes due to high antioxidant properties and bioactive compounds such as crocin, picrocrocin and safranal. The dried stigmas have been used for centuries as a seasoning and colouring agent in foods such as risotto and rice pilaf, soups and sauces, frozen desserts, confectionery, beverages and baked goods.

In order to obtain a pure saffron extract rich in crocin, picrocrocin and safranal it is necessary to undergo several phases of processing:

Extraction of the stigmas: This process consists of washing the sa

Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice by weight. It is made from the dried stigmas of a type of crocus flower (Crocus sativus). Each saffron-producing flower has only three stigmas, so it takes about 75,000 flowers to make one pound (454 g) of dry saffron threads. Saffron has been used for thousands of years and was an important part of many ancient cultures.

The use cases for saffron are many and varied, ranging from dyes to foods to perfumes and medicines. Saffron threads are commonly used in recipes from Indian cuisine, often as a substitute for or in combination with other spices. It is also used to dye fabrics such as wool, silk, and cotton. A common misconception is that saffron is responsible for the color of the yellowish-orange spice mixture “curry powder”“. However, this mixture contains no real curry plant products; rather it contains other spices including turmeric, cumin, and coriander seeds which give it its distinctive yellow coloring. Saffron itself is rarely found in curry mixtures; its cost generally prohibits it.

Saffron is a spice obtained from the dried stigmas of a variety of crocus flowers. Harvesting takes place in the late autumn and requires considerable manual labor. This is because the flower is so delicate that it crumbles to dust when touched. The work of harvesting saffron is therefore largely done by children and women.

Upsettingly, in many parts of the world these people are treated badly and paid little for their work. For example, in India many children are sold into slavery and forced to work in farms as laborers or pick saffron flowers.

The main producers of saffron are Iran, Greece, Spain, Afghanistan, Italy and Morocco.

Saffron is a spice that comes from the dried stigmas (part of the female reproductive system) of a plant. It is used in many kinds of food and drink as a coloring and flavoring agent. Saffron crocus flowers are used for dyeing fabric and also for tinctures, cosmetics, perfumes, medicines, and insecticides.

Saffron has been cultivated since antiquity in Asia Minor and North Africa. The saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) is an autumn-flowering perennial plant unknown in the wild. Its stems grow to 20–30 cm and are topped by three or four vivid crimson stigmas.

Tastes vary from dull to bitter saffron taste being caused by the presence of ligands such as picrocrocin or safranal.

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world. It is made from the dried stigmas of a particular kind of crocus. The stigmas must be harvested by hand; each flower has three of them, and it takes about 75,000 flowers to make a pound of saffron.

Saffron was known in Europe at least as early as the first century A.D., when Pliny reported that it was worth its weight in gold. But outside Asia, where it grew naturally, only small amounts were available until around 1300, when people started cultivating it. They did not do so because they valued saffron for its taste—it has none—or for its color—it comes in various shades of red and yellow—but because they valued saffron for its odor. Saffron is what chemists call an ester: a combination of an alcohol and an acid. In this case, safranal, the alcohol, and delta-cadinene, the acid. Safranal smells like hay or grass or even fresh-cut wood. These are all volatile chemicals that evaporate easily and so tend to smell more strongly than other things around them. The result is that when you cook with saffron you

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, and it has a unique flavor. It is used in many foods and drinks, such as bouillabaisse and paella, and also in perfume. Saffron comes from the stigma of a purple-flowered plant called Crocus sativus. The threads are handpicked by workers who are paid piece-rate wages, which can be as low as US $0.40 per day.

BOTSWANA: THE ECONOMY Continued…

Its economy is based on agriculture; livestock takes second place to crops. Maize, millet, sorghum, cassava (manioc), peanuts (groundnuts), rice, beans, and taro are grown for food. There is a great variety of fruits: bananas (the most important staple crop), citrus fruits (grapefruit, oranges, lemons), mangoes, pawpaws (a tropical fruit) and pineapples. Tobacco is grown for export; cotton and coffee are cash crops for export; cashews are also exported. The main industries are food processing and textiles. Gold is mined in the south but not on a large scale. Diamonds have been found in several sites but not mined commercially

Saffron is the red-orange stigmas of a small purple-flowered crocus in the iris family. The saffron crocus is probably native to Greece or Asia Minor. It was first cultivated in Greece, but spread by the Phoenicians and Arabs to India, Spain and North Africa, and it is still grown commercially in Kashmir.

Description: Saffron threads are handpicked and dried quickly so that very little moisture can be lost. Each thread must be plucked individually by hand; it takes about 75,000 flowers to yield one pound of dried saffron threads.

Taste: Saffron has a distinct earthy taste with hay-like notes and slight metallic overtones that make it a versatile seasoning agent in such dishes as risotto, paella, bouillabaisse and sauces for meat, poultry or fish. It also flavors liqueurs such as Benedictine and Chartreuse and is used to impart color to wines, such as Sherry. It is also used as a dye for cloth products ranging from saris to Persian carpets.

The word “saffron” comes from Arabic za’faran (yellow), but there are other spellings in different languages (French saf