Saffron

What we do
Our saffron is 100% natural and italian.

It is planted, grown, harvested and packed by hand, in an artisanal way.

It grows from certified organic bulbs and is produced with no chemical substances: no pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and no pre-implantation treatment of the bulbs.

It is sold only in stigmas, not in powder: a warrant of its purity and excellent quality.

How we do it

The bulbs are implanted by hand in August …

(Waiting for the saffron crocuses to bloom, we carefully pull up the weeds by hand.)

In autumn – generally starting from mid October until mid November – the flowers are picked by hand, one by one, each and every day before dawn, when they are not yet in bloom. Thi way, the stigmas are protected by any external contaminating agent and all the precious components that determine saffron colour and perfume (i.e. crocin and safranal, which are thermolabile and photosensitive) are preserved.

Every day, after picking the flowers, it’s time to extract the stigmas: in order to maintain their integrity, this operation (called “sfioratura”) is conducted entirely by hand, carefully and delicately.

On the same day, the stigmas must be dried at a very slow temperature; for how long, it depends on how much humidity they have absorbed.

Once dried, they are transferred into airtight, sterylised glass jars, that are kept in the dark for more or less one month.

Then they are weighed on a precision balance and packed by hand in small, sterylised glass screw-top jars that preserve, in the best possible way, their excellent quality.

This is the way to have the purest saffron, with its rich, intense colour, its aromatic and subtle taste and its typical, complex perfume.