Saffron

Where it comes from

Probably descended from the wild Crocus cartwrightianus, with genetic work pointing to domestication in southern Greece. Iran grows about 90 per cent of the world crop today, then Afghanistan. Spain's La Mancha has a protected designation since 2001 — a century ago Spain made around 140 tonnes a year from 13,000 hectares, and in 2022 around 450 kg. Our product is titled Spanish; the operator has the supplier record — the jar says "Selected Saffron packed in Spain" by Antonio García Iñesta S.L. of Novelda. State packed in Novelda, Spain; the growing region is not on the jar.

What happened

Frescoes at Akrotiri on Thera, sealed under volcanic ash around 1600 BC, show young girls and monkeys gathering saffron — three and a half thousand years of the same harvest. A seventh-century BC Assyrian botanical reference compiled under Ashurbanipal mentions it. Its history is full of theft and punishment: nobles hijacked an 800-pound shipment bound for Basel and a fourteen-week war followed until it was returned; Nuremberg's Safranschou code punished adulterators with fines, prison and burning. Essex's Chipping Walden renamed itself Saffron Walden by the 1540s for the crop, and its arms show the crocus inside castle walls — a pun, saffron walled-in. The Pennsylvania Dutch were growing it by 1730, after German Schwenkfelders carried corms over, and it fetched a price equal to gold. One thing worth saying plainly: safflower is not saffron, however often it is sold as it.