Plate with saffron stigmas laying on a table in a facility that Azafranes Jiloca has in Monreal del Campo, Spain. Date: 27-10-2015. Photo: Xabier Mikel Laburu. José María Plumed and his son José Ramón, cultivate, prepare and sell organic saffron through a small family business called 'Azafranes Jiloca' that was established in 1993. Their annual production of saffron is about 7Kg that are sold mainly to the international market, being Belgium one of the most important with about the 45% of their production. They also export to Germany, approximately the 7%.
It is 6 in the morning. The chill runs through the bodies and everything is ready to go. As every year, the last weekend of October the region of Castille la Mancha and part of Aragon dresses up to celebrate, as of a ritual ceremony, the recollection of the saffron rose. An agricultural production with a long known family background, that is developed as a social tradition in the genuine Spanish villages spread mainly in the provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real Albacente and Teruel. An opportunity to transmit from parents to their children the knowledge of the harvest and the subsequent handling of the flower Crocus Sativus from where the saffron is obtained, granting the continuity of a cultural tradition that was close to the verge of extinction. Until the late 70’s, Spain was the first world producer of saffron, with 4,000 cultivated hectares. Now it hardly has 150 hectares, that are in hands of 500 producers, most of them are families with small agricultural exploitations, that subsist challenging in each harvest the oscillating prices and the ram of unfair competitors, who use the name and the value of the saffron to adulterate and forge it. The price of this spice comes determined by the hand labor that is needed for its harvest and not by the difficulty of the crop. Not in vain it is the most expensive spice in the world and it is commonly known as ‘Red Gold’, with a price that can hover close to the 3,000 Euro for the producer and that it may get sold to the final consumer at 8 Euro the gram. It is precisely the use of handcraft techniques in its cultivation, harvest and the handling that awards it with a singular and unique personality that increases so much its price. Its bitter taste, the characteristic smooth aroma and the color, containing a natural dye called crocin, that gives the food its characteristic bright yellow color, that makes this spice stand between the most appreciated ones in the traditional cuisine of many countries as a condiment.
Size: 4896px × 3264px
Location: Monreal del Campo
Photo credit: © Xabier Mikel Laburu / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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