Best Saffron In New York

You will rarely, if ever, hear of an ordinary everyday person buying a kilogram of saffron.That's because very few can afford the price - $10,000. For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a kilogram is equal to 2.2 lbs. So that's just under $5,000 a lb. Our customers know we sell the best saffron in New York and some buy up five or six ounces but never have we had an order for a kilogram of saffron - not even from our corporate customers who buy cases of saffron as holiday gifts for their clients. Most of our customers buy saffron by the ounce.

If you're wondering why saffron is so expensive, it's a matter of intensive labor, and as saffron has become more and more popular, supply and demand. Saffron is extremely delicate since it consists of wispy threads or stigmas of the crocus sativus flower, so it must be harvested by hand. And each crocus only bears three stigmas yielding at best 0.06 grams, so acres and acres must be grown to get a decent harvest. Do you see where we're going with this? To sum it up, a typical kilo can require the harvesting of 450,000 strands, which in turn would require 150,000 crocuses to be grown. And that would call for a lot of land. Yet, despite the acreage needed, the number of harvesters needed, and the time it takes to painstakingly separate the stigmas from the rest of the flower, the worldwide demand for saffron continues to grow, and as a result, 30 billion flowers are needed each year.

As expected, with saffron prices being what they are, the amount of fake and adulterated saffron is growing. People are duped, since at first glance the stigmas appear to be the real thing, but they get it home and find they have a tin of corn silk, horsehair, or coconut fibers. Another dishonest practice is selling low grade saffron with the stigmas dyed bright orange to suggest high grade saffron. But the best way to avoid all these scams is to buy saffron by the ounce from us. We sell only one type of saffron - premium Selected Grade which is the cream of the crop and the best of the best. Ask saffron aficionados and they'll all tell you that our Gathering of Saffron brand is the best saffron in New York.