Burlap & Barrel Herati Saffron
Category: Spices
Our uncommonly delicate Herati Saffron threads have a beautiful delicate floral flavor, golden color and warm, honeyed fragrance reminiscent of dried roses and fresh hay. The threads are pulled carefully from the flower, leaving a characteristic flame-colored tail. Saffron is a key element in sweet and savory cuisines from the Mediterranean to South Asia. It adds a distinctive floral flavor and golden color to fragrant rice dishes like paella, risotto and biryani, to frozen desserts like ice cream and kulfi, and to teas.
Our saffron is of the highest quality, sometimes called super negin or sargol, depending on how it is harvested and graded. The slight gradation in color is your assurance that our saffron is 100% pure and never dyed or otherwise adulterated.
SOURCING
Our saffron is cultivated in the deserts of the Herat province in western Afghanistan, on the border with Iran, where saffron has grown for thousands of years. During the annual harvest in November and December, farmers begin work at dawn, plucking the beautiful white and purple crocus flowers before the desert sun can wilt them and ruin the invaluable stigmas. Each flower produces only three stigmas, which are painstakingly extracted by hand and dried.
Saffron is immensely valuable, and like any valuable product, dishonest traders may attempt to deceive consumers about the quality of their product. Safflower, a different flower entirely, is sometimes sold as saffron; safflower petals have straight, orange threads, while true saffron threads are deep red, curled and tangled. Lower-grade saffron threads may also be cut and colored with red dye to make them appear higher quality.
$9.99
0.50 ounces
Burlap & Barrel
Burlap & Barrel is a Public Benefit Corporation building new international food supply chains that are equitable, transparent and traceable.
A single origin spice company, Burlap & Barrel buys spices from farmers around the globe, who they call partners. They’ve eliminated the intermediaries who have traditionally bought and sold spices multiple times before any jar of spice lands in a U.S. customer’s kitchen cabinet. This means their spices are fresher than what you can find from the big spice companies. Spices so potent that they suggest new customers use just half a serving at first, as they sometimes get feedback from customers that the spices are too strong. It's not that the spices are too strong, but rather we are just accustomed to cooking with old spices! Did you know that supermarket spices sometimes have been in transit for three years?!?!?
Another benefit to eliminating spice brokers is that Burlap & Barrel can pay the farmers more for their crops while offering quality spices to the public at affordable prices.
SUPPORTING SMALLHOLDER FARMERS
Burlap & Barrel is working towards ending inequality and exploitation in food systems that disenfranchise skilled farmers.
They do this by:
- Connecting smallholder farmers to high-value markets
- Educating consumers about the impact of product traceability on human rights
- Sourcing unique foods with terroir that are grown biodynamically and organically using traditional techniques
REDEFINING SUSTAINABILITY
Mainstream conversations around food sustainability rarely consider the people involved in growing, harvesting, transporting, processing and cooking food. Sustainability is discussed in terms of environmental impact, or the comfort of livestock providing meat, dairy or eggs.
The folks at Burlap & Barrel believe that the standard measures of sustainability must evolve to consider the conditions in which the farmers who drive global food supply chains earn their livelihoods. Single origin ingredients draw attention to the unique environments in which incredible ingredients grow and to the farmers with the expertise and commitment to grow them well.