By Porter Lang
Treat saffron like any gear: check the spec first. The spec is short. A colour number, a grade, a place name and a harvest year. The rest is packaging.
Why October matters
Saffron is the dried stigma of a crocus. Wikipedia says each flower has a three-pronged style, each prong ending in a crimson stigma, so three stigmas per flower. It says flowers appear in October, in mid-autumn, and that all plants in an area bloom inside a window of one or two weeks. They open at dawn and wilt as the day goes on, so picking is quick and by hand.
In Kashmir the dates are narrower still. Gulf News, a newspaper, says the harvest runs from late October to mid-November. Drishti IAS, an exam-preparation site, says mid-October to November. The Tribune, a newspaper, says flowers typically bloom between 10 and 15 October, with harvesting regularly done by 15 November, and that corms are ideally sown in late July.
The arithmetic of a gram
Wikipedia gives these figures: about 150,000 flowers, or 440,000 stigmas, per kilogram; roughly 150 flowers for a gram of dry threads; about 7 mg of dried saffron from one flower; about forty hours to pick 150,000 flowers. Gulf News says about half a million stigmas, from at least 150,000 flowers, make a kilogram. Those two stigma counts differ by about sixty thousand. Neither source says why.
Where it grows
Drishti IAS says the harvest is concentrated in Pampore in south Kashmir, with saffron grown on the Karewa highlands of Jammu and Kashmir. Gulf News calls Pampore the saffron town of Kashmir and adds fields in Pulwama district, Budgam and the outskirts of Srinagar.
Wikipedia and Drishti IAS both give 2020 as the year Kashmir saffron received a Geographical Indication. The Tribune says an Advanced Research Centre for Saffron and Seed Spices in Pampore is India’s only saffron research centre, and that a Saffron Park there was established in 2014 and became operational in 2020, with over 500 farmers bringing harvests for testing, drying and marketing.
Two Kashmiri names
Wikipedia calls Kashmiri saffron, in its mongra and lachha forms, one of the darkest varieties, a dark maroon-purple. Gulf News explains the words:
- Mongra: the darkest type, with a slight bitterness. One strand can flavour a dish, it says.
- Lacha (spelled lachha by Wikipedia): threads that include both red and yellow parts. The yellow part is called saffron dust.
Gulf News also gives crocin content of about 8.72 per cent in Kashmiri saffron against 6.82 per cent in Iranian. It does not say which test or year.
What the lab grade measures
Wikipedia describes the international standard ISO 3632. It measures crocin, which gives colour, picrocrocin, which gives taste, and safranal, which gives aroma, by spectrophotometer. It sets categories III, II and I, with I the finest. An older category IV sat below III. Colouring strength runs from under 80 for category IV to 200 or more for category I, and the finest samples exceed 250. Floral waste and ash are tested as well. Safranal has no separate threshold: samples must read 20 to 50 in every category.
Our reading: a category number on a tin is only as good as the test report behind it. The sources describe the standard. They do not say who checks the label.
What gets mixed in
Wikipedia’s list of adulterants is long. Threads have been bulked with beetroot, pomegranate fibres, red-dyed silk or yellow stamens, and weighted with honey or vegetable oil. Powder is often diluted with turmeric or paprika. Safflower is a common substitute. Gardenia extract is more recent and detectable by the presence of geniposide. Wikipedia adds that Iranian saffron is sometimes mixed with local Kashmiri saffron and sold as “Kashmir brand”. That is the reason a place name and a lab report belong together.
Keeping it
Wikipedia says stigmas are dried quickly after extraction and are best kept in airtight containers. Dry saffron breaks down under light and oxidising agents, and is more tolerant of heat.
A thin crop
Production is small and shifts with the weather. The Tribune says saffron is cultivated across 3,500 hectares, that output once reached nearly 17 tons and has settled at around 15. In the same article a grower puts Kashmir’s output at 10 to 12 tons against national demand of nearly 50 tons. Those two output figures are in one newspaper and do not agree. Drishti IAS reports a 79 per cent rainfall deficit in Srinagar from 1 October to 14 November 2024, after a 26 per cent deficit in the monsoon, and says production declined. The Tribune credits timely rain with a recovery the following year, and says rising temperatures, erratic weather and diminishing snowfall disrupt the conditions the crop needs.
Dates in order
- 2010-11: National Mission on Saffron launched, according to Drishti IAS.
- 2014: Saffron Park established, according to the Tribune.
- 2020: Geographical Indication granted; Saffron Park operational.
- 2024: autumn rainfall deficit, according to Drishti IAS.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia; two newspapers, Gulf News and the Tribune; and Drishti IAS, a coaching site that summarises the news. We did not use any brand or retailer page. Prices appear in some of the sources and are left out.
Quick answers
When is Kashmir saffron harvested? According to the Tribune, flowers bloom around 10 to 15 October and harvesting is done by 15 November. Gulf News says late October to mid-November.
What is mongra saffron? Gulf News says mongra is the darkest type, slightly bitter, and that one strand can flavour a dish. Wikipedia counts mongra and lachha among the darkest varieties.
Does Kashmir saffron have a GI tag? Yes. Wikipedia and Drishti IAS both say it received a Geographical Indication in 2020.
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