Pampore · ISO 3632 Grade I · Batch 04 / 2026
Saffron Reserve
Three threads to a flower, picked before the sun reaches the field.
- Origin
- Pampore
- Tasting notes
- Honeyed leather, dried hay, a long metallic finish.
- Extraction
- Hand-separated, low-heat dried, never sun-bleached.
- Numbering
- Numbered by gram against batch 04 / 2026.
- Weight
- 1g · 2g · 5g
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The sourcing
The fields at Pampore are worked at dawn, because a crocus opened by full sun has already begun to lose what makes it worth picking. Each flower carries three crimson stigmas and no more. They are separated by hand the same day, dried slowly over low heat, and graded to ISO 3632 Grade I — the measure of colour, aroma and bitterness that separates true saffron from what is sold as it.
The ritual
- 01
Place three threads in a small bowl of warm · never boiling · water. Watch the colour bloom slowly over four minutes.
- 02
Add to warm milk with a quarter teaspoon of raw honey. Drink in the morning before anything else.
- 03
For rice or broth: dissolve in two tablespoons of warm water first. Add just before removing from heat.
Properties & traditional use
Crocin (colour), safranal (aroma) and picrocrocin (the bitter note). ISO 3632 Grade I is the top band for all three.
- Taken in the evening
- Three threads in warm milk before bed is the oldest habit attached to saffron in Kashmiri households — it is the form nearly everyone here grew up with.
- A little goes far
- The dose has always been tiny: three threads, not three pinches. Saffron is a food to be used sparingly, and more of it does not make it better.
- Colour is the measure
- Grade I means colour strength above 190 on the ISO scale. That number is the honest way to judge saffron — deep red threads with no yellow style attached.
Offered as background on how these foods have long been used in Kashmiri households, and what they are made of. They are foods, not medicines. Nothing here is a medical claim, and none of it replaces advice from a doctor — particularly if you are pregnant, taking medication, or managing a condition.
