BEAUTIFUL TRANSITION FROM POISON TO AMBROSIA NOW

SAFFRON: A GOLDEN TRANSITION

Saffron is helping farmers in Afghanistan make a beautiful transition, from a life filled with serious danger and hardship to one of golden prosperity.

Due to pressure from Taliban warlords, and little economic choice, Afghan farmers have been forced to grow opium poppies to earn a living. But now, thanks to help from a new startup with a golden purpose, they have a more beautiful option. They are now growing the most expensive food in the world: saffron.

At a retail price of about $5,000/lb., saffron offers Afghan farmers a chance to transition from growing a crop that kills to one that enraptures. It can shift their end-users -- from heroin junkies to foodies. It can relieve their poverty, enable prosperity, and give them and their families a more beautiful life.

Rumi Spice a small, entrepreneurial company, founded in 2013 by US Army veterans Kimberly Jung and Keith Alaniz, is helping to make the poppy-to-saffron transition happen for Afghan farmers by helping them to develop both their crops and their markets. 

While serving in Afghanistan, Jung and Alaniz  learned that the country’s hot winds and dry climates are ideal for growing saffron and they had an epiphany. This highly lucrative cash crop could help Afghanistan’s economy kick the heroin poppy habit.

Saffron is an extraordinary seasoning that comes from stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus). People love it for its incredibly seductive flavor, heady aroma, and magnificent color… but it takes a lot of human energy and resources to produce it. 

The stigmas, or threads, as they are known, are harvested by hand. It takes about 20 hours of labor to pick 200,000 stigmas from 75,000 saffron crocus flowers, which yields about 1 pound (450 g) of dried threads.

Rumi Spice has partnered with Afghan farmers to develop a high-quality sustainably farmed saffron crop. The company now purchases about 2kg of saffron, per farmer, per year, at a wholesale price of $1,700 to $2,000/kg, or 7X their usual annual household income, all transacted through fair-trade, without middle men.

When Rumi Spice started, Jung, who since became a Harvard Business School student, personally carried saffron shipments directly from the farmers in Afghanistan’s Herat and Wardak Provinces to the US, then sold it herself in local farmers and gourmet shops in the Boston area. 

With opium cultivation in Afghanistan at an all time high, according to the most recent annual United Nations survey, the Taliban coffers are filling, increasing their power and threat. Interestingly, about 90% of the world’s saffron is now grown in Iran.

Now, there is hope, that the transition from farming poppies to farming saffron can help Afghans to cultivate peace in the process. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani earlier this year named saffron as an agricultural product that could boost his country’s development.

Profits are reinvested to help build an agricultural infrastructure that can support the Afghan economy and serve as a foundation for peace and prosperity.  

Saffron has a warm floral umami taste, with a gorgeous complex aroma, a bit reminiscent of honeyed hay -- produced by over 150 volatile compounds. It imparts a beautiful golden orange-yellow color to recipes, thanks to its crocin, a carotenoid pigment. 

Saffron is widely used in Persian, Indian, European, Arab, and Turkish cuisines, adding its iconic presence to dishes like bouillabaisse, paella, risotto, and biryani.

Now, you can purchase saffron online from Rumi Spice. Use it simply to make a heavenly tea or, with a little more effort, try some of the wonderful saffron recipes we’ve curated for you below.

Cecilia Stoute, of One Vanilla Bean, discovered the amazing affinity between saffron and peaches when she tested a peach & saffron jam recipe for  Bonnie Benwick and the Washington Post. It tastes like you’re spreading sunshine. Check out the recipe here.

Saffron gets a warm sweet treatment by The Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong’s Maitre Chocolatier Marijn Coertjens, with Kumquat-Saffron Bonbons.

Made with saffron caramel, kumquat ganache, and cloaked in luscious chocolate, these are little drops of heaven. If you can’t make it to Hong Kong, you can whip them up yourself with the recipe here.

Beeta Hashempour, of Mon Petit Four, uses saffron quite a bit in her cooking. She comes from a legacy of saffron love. Her parents created a novel saffron spray, Spray 'N' Serve® Saffron. It’s an easy way to add real saffron flavor to any recipe.

Check out her Saffron Pear Cake. You’ll find out how beautifully saffron’s warm floral notes dance with sweet pears in this moist buttery cake. See recipe here.

Read more about Beautiful Transitions, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Embrace Beautiful Transitions Now and Ice Transitions Are Beautiful Now.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by T. MA. Saffron - Crocus sativus.
2. Image by Sarah Adams. Saffron Crocus.
3. Image: Sea Turtle. Saffron Macro.
4. Image: by Judith Doyle. March 12/12 Crocus.
5. Image: Courtesy of Rumi Spice. Afghan Man Showing Saffron.
6. Image: by Alex. Azafrán | Safran | Saffron | זעפרן.
7. Image: Courtesy of Inner Natural. Saffron Filaments.
8. Image: Courtesy of Asoma Cooperativa. Saffron Crocus Flowers.
9. Image: by Ian. Grown in Norfolk. Saffron filaments.
10. Image: by Emma Cooper. Papaver somniferum. Opium Poppy.
11. Image: by Nick Fleming. Harvesting Saffron Crocuses near Pampore, Kashmir.
12. Image: Courtesy of Auzoud. Saffron Hands.
13. Image: Courtesy of Rumi Spice. Saffron Threads.
14. Image: by Roberto. Sun-Rice. Risotto alla milanese.
15. Image: Courtesy of Rumi Spice. Saffron & Cardamon Tea.
16. Image: by Cecilia Stoute, of One Vanilla Bean. Peaches and Saffron.
17. Image: Courtesy of The Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong. Kumquat-Saffron Bonbons, created by Marijn Coertjens.
18. Image: by Beeta Hashempour of Mon Petit Four. Saffron Pear Cake.
19. Image: by Beeta Hashempour of Mon Petit Four. Saffron Pear Cake.
20. Image: by Chotda. Saffron Petit Fours.
21. Image: by Safa Daneshvar. Saffron Farm, Torbat heydariyeh, Razavi Khorasan province, Iran.
22. Image: by BN App - Download now!
23. Image: by Emma Cooper. Saffron stigma.