Saffron from Corrèze

A little riddle: what is the most expensive spice in the world? No idea? Well, it's saffron, often called "red gold".

This product lives up to its name, because if you want to buy 1g of saffron you have to pay the modest sum of €30, or even €40 (depending on the quality of the spice), which is still €30,000 per kg...

We are fortunate in Corrèze to have several saffron farms:
- La source blanche at Charniac,
- Le diable corrézien at Lagleygeolle,
- La Paradisière at Laval-sur-Luzège
- Vézère saffron

The saffron farm

Their production begins with the planting of Crocus sativus bulbs, which produce pretty little purple flowers in October. They have to be picked quickly, but above all very carefully, so as not to damage the precious pistil that later produces the spice.

This is followed by a colossal task for the growers: they have to remove the pistil from each flower by hand and dry it. Once 80% of the moisture has been removed, the pistil becomes a dried filament that represents the precious saffron. You're going to say "there's a stage missing, saffron is a powder in the end", but no... Real saffron comes in a filament pot.

To give you an idea of the work involved, you need around 150 flowers to obtain 1 g of dry saffron. Production is therefore only profitable if you have a large farm.