faerie's finest is an emporium of gourmet seasonings and ingredients offering a wide variety of natural sea salts, gourmet loose teas, distinctively flavored sugars, cocoas and salts, unique seasoning blends, herbs and spices, bakery quality flavor extracts, alcohol-free flavor powders, and pure essentials oils.
Doctors Without Borders - https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org Haiti needs your help now!
Doctors Without Borders has been working
in Haiti for 19 years and is mobilizing a
large emergency response to this disaster.
click here to contact faerie's finest at our toll free number

We accept payment with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, PayPal and personal checks

saffron

crocus cartwrightianus

saffron
1 gram    $ 4.99
saffron
4 grams    $ 14.99
saffron crocus
saffron crocus
 
The beautiful purple flowers of the crocus cartwrightianus plant each produce three bright yellow-red stigmas.  About 80,000 of these stigmas must be picked by hand to make one pound of dried saffron. 

This labor intensive harvesting makes saffron the most expensive spice in the world on a per pound basis.  However, the flavor of saffron is very intense and tiny amounts are used in recipes. 

Most of the world's saffron is cultivated in Spain and Iran but it is also grown in Greece, Italy, Turkey and India.  The world's smallest saffron crop is produced in Mund, Switzerland, the only cool weather location to successfully produce it.

Saffron gets its bright yellow-orange color from cartenoids, the same compounds that give carrots and pumpkins their bright colors.  The name 'saffron' is from the Arabic word for yellow, ze'fran.

Most often seen in aromatic rice dishes from India and Asia, saffron also shows up in the yoghurt drink, lassi, as well as saffron-flavored butter and saffron ice cream. 

Saffron is very good with asparagus, carrots, chicken, eggs, fish and seafood, leeks, mushrooms, pheasant, rabbit, spinach and winter squash.

Saffron combines well with cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, paprika, pepper and vanilla.