PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Saffron grown and photographed by Raye Schwarz, Seattle, WA 2012-2017
Saffron grows from corms and only reproduces with human help.
The flowers are traditionally harvested before or just after opening in order to protect the fragrant threads.
Freshly-picked stigmas are an ombré from red to white and become darker with drying. The white and yellow styles are often trimmed off completely, leaving just the red part, called sargol or coupe.
Fresh-picked vs 3-day-old shows how dramatically the spice threads shrink as they dry.
It takes 5000+ flowers to make an ounce of spice.
Saffron only blooms in the fall, for just a few weeks.
Each flower has six purple petals, three yellow stamen and three red stigmas.
The three stigmas are the spice and the rest of the flower is discarded.
