Why Real Saffron Is So Expensive | So Expensive

[Music] even in the expensive world of spices saffron stands out and real saffron can cost you over ten thousand dollars per kilogram sought after for thousands of years as a spice a dye and a medicine you need over 150 flowers to make just one 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 one kilogram of high quality saffron growing the plants isn't exactly easy either they're actually called corns but we they're like a bulb basically like 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 wherever 90 of the world 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 horse hair synthetic colorings are also used to 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 dollars 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 i've been asked that one by a lot of people over the years it's uh it's so difficult to describe which is i think part of its fascination for people and why it ended up you know as an expensive product because it is it just adds something it's a bittersweet flavor it's an earthy flavour trying to replicate it's very difficult 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 slept on 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 spices 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 we had you know very few uh rains in the last i think four or five years the temperature and the climate has completely changed in kashmir when i was a kid when we used to go to the saffron farms to pick up the saffron we would 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 i'm very emotional about the the saffron because this is a cultural identity of kashmir and especially the people of pampur but the thing is that you know the production is declining and uh you know the lands are being sold the houses are being built on the saffron lands you know it really disheartens me between 2017 and 18 saffron production in the region fell almost 70 percent from 16.5 metric tons down to 5.2 and with continuing droughts and climate change this harvest could become even more rare

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 3,129,691

Rating: 4.9202828 out of 5

Keywords: Business News, so expensive, saffron, spice, cooking, food, spices, UK Original Video, Business Insider

Id: fP2WUnBjmkk

Length: 6min 48sec (408 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020