How to judge saffron quality
Saffron is the world's most adulterated spice. Marigold petals, dyed corn silk, beetroot fibre, even shredded red paper — they've all been passed off as kesar at some point. Even when the threads are real, the grade can be poor: weak colour, weak aroma, harvest leftovers sold at premium prices.
Here's how to tell the difference.
1. ISO 3632 grade
ISO 3632 is the international standard for saffron. It measures three things in a lab: colouring strength (crocin, absorbance at 440nm), bitterness (picrocrocin, 257nm), and aroma (safranal, 330nm).
The grade you want is Category I (also called Grade 1):
- Colouring strength ≥ 190
- Bitterness ≥ 70
- Safranal between 20 and 50
Anything below those numbers is not Grade 1. Our own kesar measures colouring strength of 200+, which means a smaller pinch goes further.
2. The float test
Drop a few threads into a glass of room-temperature water. Real saffron releases its colour slowly — you'll see golden tendrils for the first minute, deepening to amber over five to ten minutes. The threads themselves stay red.
Fake or dyed saffron bleeds colour instantly, and the threads either turn white or fall apart. If the water turns red in thirty seconds, walk away.
3. The smell and feel test
Real saffron smells like honey, hay, and something faintly metallic — a complex, slightly bitter top note over a sweet base. If it smells sharply sweet, like cheap perfume or cake icing, it's been treated.
Real threads are slightly springy and feel dry but not brittle. If they crumble to dust between your fingers, they're old or have been over-dried.
4. The three things sellers don't want you to know
- "Premium" is meaningless without a grade number. Demand the ISO 3632 certificate.
- Origin is not a guarantee of quality. A famous region name on the label tells you nothing on its own — every growing region has Grade 1 and low-grade harvests. Insist on the colouring strength.
- Cheap saffron is almost always cut. A genuine 200+ kesar costs what it costs because each gram is the dried stigma of roughly 150 hand-picked crocus flowers. There is no shortcut.
What we do at Baby Saffron
Every batch we pack is lab-tested for ISO 3632 Grade 1. The certificate ships with every order, and the colouring strength of the batch you bought is on the back of the tin. We've been doing this for six generations — the only thing that's changed is the lab.