Saffron is one of those ingredients that invites curiosity. At first glance, it’s just a handful of thin red threads, but behind each one sits a world of craftsmanship, chemistry, and tradition. And before we can talk about grading systems or quality tiers, we need to understand what saffron actually is.

Each saffron thread comes from the Crocus sativus flower. Inside the bloom are 3 stigmas: delicate, long filaments that we know as saffron. When harvested at dawn and sundried with care, these stigmas become the vivid red threads that flavor our rice, brighten our teas, and perfume our desserts.

A single stigma has 2 regions:

Saffron is one of the world’s rarest and most valuable spices, but also one of the most misunderstood. Without grading, buyers have long struggled to tell the difference between:

- A premium, hand-selected batch of deep red filaments

- A low-grade blend with yellow mixed in

- Saffron that’s been cheaply dried and lost its potency

- Saffron that has been adulterated or even dyed

Grading protects both farmers and customers by giving everyone a shared language for quality.

It ensures:

1. Fair pricing so high-quality farmers can earn properly and there is more incentive to produce high-quality saffron

2. Predictable potency so chefs know what to expect

3. Purity guarantees so consumers can avoid counterfeit saffron

4. Transparency so customers understand exactly what they’re buying

In an industry where fake saffron is unfortunately common (it’s actually the world’s most counterfeited spice), grading systems support trust and accountability. We dive deeper into fraud prevention in another of our articles “Fake vs real saffron”, which I strongly recommend you read next.

Simply put: Higher-grade saffron is more powerful, more aromatic, and more vibrant.

Here’s how grading affects your customer experience:

1. Price: Higher grades cost more because they require more labor, more careful sorting, removal of yellow styles (thus more threads needed for the same weight), gentle drying, and strict handling and storage.

Super Negin, for example, may represent only 1-2% of the entire global harvest.

2. Potency: Grade 1 saffron and premium traditional grades contain far more crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal.

This means while you pay more, you also use much less saffron for the same result, making high-grade saffron more economical than it first appears.

3. Flavor, Color and Aroma: Higher-grade saffron tastes richer, more floral and super well balanced in bitterness and honey-like sweetness. Additionally, because of its higher crocin content, higher-grade saffron has a much more vivid golden color and is slow but steady to release it.

4. Health Benefits: Many of the health benefits people associate with saffron are tied to the strength of its active compounds: Crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal. They aren't just responsible for color, flavor, and aroma, they’re also the same compounds most often used in scientific studies on saffron’s antioxidant capacity, mood support, and sleep-related pathways. When saffron is high-grade, these compounds exist in far higher concentrations, which means the saffron behaves closer to what research is actually studying.

This is especially important for people who use saffron for nighttime tea or calming rituals. Studies exploring aroma-driven relaxation or sleep quality typically rely on saffron with high safranal levels, something only Grade 1 saffron consistently delivers. For more on saffron and sleep, click here to read our article: Will Saffron Make You Sleepy?

The bottom line: Grading isn’t about prestige, it’s about potency and performance!

And understanding it helps you choose the right saffron for your kitchen, tea rituals, or wellness routines.

If traditional grades like Negin or Sargol help us understand how saffron looks, the ISO 3632 standard helps us understand how saffron performs. Think of ISO as the laboratory backbone of the entire global saffron trade: A scientific way to measure potency, purity, and consistency across countries and harvest years.

ISO 3632 doesn’t judge the beauty of the threads or whether the saffron is long and elegant. Instead, it measures the chemistry inside those threads, giving us a clear scientific sense of how strong the color, flavor, and aroma will be. Another area where this is extremely important is scientific research. Scientific research into saffron’s health benefits has been booming in recent years, and here it’s only logical that chemical concentrations matter a lot!

ISO laboratories analyze 3 key compounds:

- Crocin: the molecule responsible for color

- Picrocrocin: the compound responsible for saffron’s bitter-sweet flavor

- Safranal: the aroma molecule (honey-like, floral, slightly hay-like)

Each one contributes to what we often describe as "potent saffron". When all 3 are present in strong, balanced quantities, you have saffron that performs beautifully in the kitchen, in tea rituals and potent in your body.

At Heray Spice, we’ve always believed that saffron should be both beautiful and verifiable. Anyone can claim they sell “premium saffron”, but only a handful of producers provide real laboratory proof. That’s why every batch of our Afghan saffron is tested by the Saffron Quality Control Lab in Herat, the same regional authority that evaluates saffron bound for global export.

These lab results don’t just confirm quality. They tell the story of how strong the saffron will be in your kitchen, your tea, and your wellness rituals. 

We test for 3 reasons:

1. To confirm purity:

Our saffron is harvested, sorted, and dried by hand, but laboratory analysis ensures there is:

- No adulteration (not even water!)

- No additives or dyes

- No contamination

- No yellow styles or debris mixed into premium grades

2. To verify potency for our clients:

Saffron isn’t just about appearance, it’s about chemistry. We test to confirm high levels of:

- Crocin (color strength)

- Picrocrocin (flavor strength)

- Safranal (aroma intensity)

3. To ensure consistency for chefs, home cooks and B2B customers:

A Michelin-level chef in Chicago and a grandmother making chai in Kabul should both get saffron that performs beautifully and predictably. Batch testing makes this possible.

Furthermore, in recent years our clientele has expanded to include a range of health-focused companies who use our saffron in their supplements, herbal blends etc. For them, it is extremely important that they know the precise chemical concentrations of our saffron and we take this very seriously!

Our saffron is evaluated using ISO 3632, the international standard for saffron testing. This is the same framework used across Afghanistan, Iran, Spain, and Europe to determine saffron grade.

The lab analyzes:

- Extraneous matter (should be minimal)

- Foreign matter (should be nearly zero)

- Moisture content (shows proper drying)

- Crocin (color) value

- Picrocrocin (flavor) value

- Safranal (aroma) value

- Artificial colorants (must be absent)

These numbers determine whether saffron qualifies as Category I (Grade 1), Category II, or Category III. In our lab results below, you can also find the columns with required values for each of the categories.

In the global saffron industry, transparency is the ultimate act of respect: Respect for farmers, for the spice itself, and for the customers who invite saffron into their kitchens.

By sharing our lab results publicly, we aim to:

- Honor the work of our dedicated Afghan farmers

- Prove the authenticity of every batch

- Build trust with customers

- Encourage honesty across the spice trade

- Preserve saffron’s cultural heritage

Anyone can talk about “premium saffron.”

We prefer to show it.

And when your saffron consistently reaches crocin values above 300, picrocrocin above 100, and safranal between 20-50, the numbers speak beautifully for themselves and we are PROUD to show off our lab results year after year.

While ISO 3632 tells you how potent saffron is in the lab, traditional market grades explain how the saffron was harvested, sorted and cut. These grades existed long before laboratory testing, rooted in generations of farmers, traders, and cooks across Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia.

Here’s the short, practical version you need to know:

This quick overview gives you the essentials, but the full story goes deeper. If you want to see photos, side-by-side comparisons, in depth descriptions of each, and deeper cultural detail, we recommend you read our article “Fake vs Real Saffron”.

This quick overview gives you the essentials, but the full story goes deeper. If you want to see photos, side-by-side comparisons, in depth descriptions of each, and deeper cultural detail, we recommend you read our article “Fake vs Real Saffron”.

Just like wine, saffron is deeply shaped by its environment. The soils and microclimates of each region influence how much crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal develop inside each stigma.

Key factors include:

- Elevation: Higher altitudes encourage stronger aroma development.

- Temperature swings: Warm days + cold desert nights concentrate safranal.

- Soil minerals: Herat’s mineral-rich soils support deep red pigmentation.

- Water availability: Saffron thrives in dry conditions with occasional watering.

- Drying traditions: Gentle, artisanal drying preserves volatile aroma compounds.

Herat’s climate is naturally optimized for saffron chemistry. Dry air, abundant sunlight, cold nights, and sandy soil all naturally push crocin and safranal levels higher which result in richer color and more vibrant aroma.

The result? Afghan saffron threads that stand out immediately in lab testing and sensory evaluation.

Afghan saffron has earned global recognition for nine consecutive years now as the best saffron in the world according to the International Taste Institute.

Why?

Because Herat’s terroir is nearly perfect:

- High altitude

- Cold desert climate

- Mineral-rich soil

- Drying methods that preserve aroma

- Small-batch hand processing

Afghan threads consistently achieve high crocin values, meaning vivid golden color, strong aroma, and rich flavor.

Iran produces around 85-90% of the world’s saffron, which means its influence on the global market is enormous. And to be clear: Iran is home to some exceptional saffron: Rich in aroma, deeply colored, and harvested using generations of knowledge.

But quantity doesn’t always equal consistency.

The Iranian saffron market includes:

- High-end, premium saffron that rivals the world’s best

- Mid-grade saffron produced at large scale

- Low-grade saffron mixed with yellow styles

- Blended batches sold in bulk for export

- Poorly dried saffron that loses aroma quickly

In many cases, saffron labeled “Product of Iran” can range from outstanding to mediocre, sometimes even within the same shipment. Large-scale production brings incredible volume, but it can also introduce variability.

This is why consumers and chefs who seek the highest quality often look to Afghan saffron for smaller, more consistent, and more carefully handled batches.

Lab results are nice and all, but not really practical in a home setting. Luckily, farmers in Herat have been evaluating saffron long before spectrophotometers existed, using their eyes, fingers, and noses to judge quality instantly. Once you know what to look for, your senses become your best quality testers.

A high-quality saffron is a different product. It's not even in the same ballpark.

Every batch of our Afghan Heray Saffron is certified Grade A, ethically sourced from farmers we work closely together with. And on top of that, we only sell from the last harvest to guarantee maximum purity and freshness.

Allow me to invite you to taste the difference.