Kashmiri saffron has a Geographical Indication tag marking its ingenuity and making it illegal for anyone outside the valley to sell a similar product under the “Kashmiri saffron” name. Jammu & Kashmir is the only state in India that produces saffron, also known as ‘red gold’. Pampore is known as the ‘saffron bowl’; the town’s saffron is considered to be of superior quality because of the high concentration of crocin (8.72%) – which gives the saffron its darker colour and medicinal value – as compared to the Iranian variety (6.82%).
The saffron available in Kashmir is of three types — ‘Lachha Saffron’, with stigmas just separated from the flowers and dried without further processing; ‘Mongra Saffron’, in which stigmas are detached from the flower, dried in the sun and processed traditionally; and ‘Guchhi Saffron’, which is the same as Lachha, except that the latter’s dried stigmas are packed loosely in air-tight containers while the former has stigmas joined together in a bundle tied with a cloth thread.
Saffron cultivation is believed to have been introduced in Kashmir by Central Asian immigrants around 1st Century BCE. In ancient Sanskrit literature, saffron is referred to as ‘bahukam’.
Picture Credit : Google