Saffron Antioxidants Explained
Saffron antioxidants are mostly crocins, which score well in test-tube assays — but crocin is not absorbed intact, and a pinch supplies a trivial...
Read article →Field notes & recipes
Learn About Saffron
Field notes from a saffron house: how to tell real saffron from dyed, what Super Negin actually means, the Afghan tea ritual, and the dishes worth spending threads on — qabuli pulao, sholeh zard, sheer yakh. Start with the saffron ritual, check our lab results, or go straight to the crystal collection.
What E1%1cm Means on a Saffron Report
The absorbance notation on a saffron analysis, taken apart piece by piece — and the limits of what a single figure can prove.
Read article →Saffron vs Turmeric: Not Interchangeable
Two unrelated spices that both turn food yellow — and why substituting one for the other changes the dish rather than saving it.
Read article →How Saffron Degrades Over Time
Aroma goes first, colour lasts longest — here is what actually happens inside a saffron thread as it ages, and how to slow it.
Read article →Why You Bloom Saffron in Warm Water, Not Hot
Bloom saffron at around 150F (65C) for ten to twenty minutes: boiling water gains you little colour and costs you most of the aroma.
Read article →Why Saffron Turns Food Golden
Saffron colours food gold because its pigment, crocin, dissolves in water and travels wherever the liquid goes.
Read article →What Is Safranal (and Why More Is Not Better)?
Safranal carries saffron's aroma, but it builds at the expense of taste as threads age or are dried too hard, so a high reading...
Read article →What Is Picrocrocin?
Picrocrocin is saffron's bitter, water-soluble taste compound, and the reserve that slowly converts into aroma as threads age.
Read article →What Is Crocin in Saffron?
Crocin is the water-soluble pigment family behind saffron's colour, read at 440nm as colouring strength, and it fades with light, heat, air and time.
Read article →From reading to tasting
Read enough? Taste it.
Everything in the journal comes back to the same bottles: single-origin Herati Super Negin, single-origin and harvest-dated.
For giving
The Crystal Bottle — 1 g
One gram of Super Negin in a crystal keepsake bottle. About 60 cups of tea.
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The Gift Box
Two crystal bottles in a gold-foiled gift box — one to give, one to keep.
$27.991 g + teacup & saucer
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The Connoisseur Jar — 5 g
For the kitchen that cooks with saffron, not around it.
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