2. INTRODUCTION
• Saffron – spices – crocus sativus
• Saffron – worlds most expensive spice by weight – 85 spice
• Saffron – important recipes – our food
• saffron – dried stigmas of crocus sativus L., - most precious product
• It’s a sterile triploid plant
• Family - Iridaceae
• Genus - Crocus
• Order - Lilacs
• Geographical sources – India, Iran, Spain, Greece
3. • Each saffron flower has only three stigmas
• Saffron taste – iodoform or hay like fragrance – phytochemicals
picrocrocin and safranal
• It also contains carotenoid pigment , crocin which impart a rich
golden yellow hue to dishes and textiles
• Its uses – Food additives and traditional medicines
• Used in food additives is due its aroma and better taste ,colour
The name Saffron comes from
the Arabic word,” zafaran ”
which means yellow and it is
the official color of Buddhist
robes in India.
4. HARVESTING SAFFRON
• Corms are sowed in summer
• Saffron crocus flowers are ready to be harvested mid-to late autumn
• The flowers must be harvested by hand , before or immediately after sunrise so
that they are not damaged by direct heat from the sun.
• The flowers are very delicate, and many growers believe mechanical plucking
damages the saffron crocus flowers.
• Each flower produces only 3 stigmas.
• Once the flowers have been harvested, its stigmas must be plucked and dried
for around 12 hours.
• It takes between 15,000-16,000 flowers to produce 1 kilogram of saffron spice.
• In terms of labor, producing this amount takes 370–470 hours!
• It is this labor-intensive harvesting process that makes saffron so expensive.
5. PHYTOCHEMISTRY AND SENSORY PROPERTIES
• Saffron contains some 28 volatile and aroma-yielding compounds, dominated
by ketones and aldehydes.
• An aroma chemical analysis showed that the main aroma-active compounds were safranal– the
main compound responsible for saffron aroma – 4-ketoisophorone, and dihydrooxophorone
• Saffron also contains nonvolatile phytochemicals, Including carotenoids,
including zeaxanthin, lycopene, and various α- and β-carotenes
• The yellow-orange colour of saffron is primarily the result of α-crocin.
• This means that the crocin underlying saffron's aroma is a digentiobiose ester of the carotenoid
crocetin.
• Crocins themselves are a series of hydrophilic carotenoids that are either monoglycosyl or
diglycosyl polyene esters of crocetin.
• Crocetin is a conjugated polyene dicarboxylic acid that is hydrophobic, and thus oil-soluble.
• When crocetin is esterified with two water-soluble gentiobioses, which are sugars, a product
results that is itself water-soluble.
• The resultant α-crocin is a carotenoid pigment that may make up more than 10% of dry
saffron's mass.
• The two esterified gentiobioses make α-crocin ideal for colouring water-based and non-fatty
foods such as rice dishes.
6. • The bitter glucoside picrocrocin is responsible for saffron's pungent flavour.
• Picrocrocin is a union of an aldehyde sub-molecule known as safranal and a
carbohydrate.
• It has insecticidal and pesticidal properties and may comprise up to 4% of dry
saffron.
• Picrocrocin is a truncated version of the carotenoid zeaxanthin that is produced
via oxidative cleavage and is the glycoside of the terpene aldehyde safranal.
• When saffron is dried after its harvest, the heat, combined with enzymatic action,
splits picrocrocin to yield D–glucose and a free safranal molecule
• Safranal, a volatile oil, gives saffron much of its distinctive aroma.
• Safranal is less bitter than picrocrocin and may comprise up to 70% of dry saffron's
volatile fraction in some samples
• Saffron's aroma which produces a scent described as saffron, dried hay-like.
7.
8. TYPES OF SAFFRON
• Negin
• Sargol
• Pushal
• Khooshe
• Konj
Among the varieties most hard to find
on the market is the saffron coming
from the Indo-Pakistani area
of Kashmir. Here they produce the
darkest variety in the world which
tends towards a purple-brown colour,
called Mongra or Lacha.
9. ADULTERATION
• Quality of samples depends on the color produced by crocin and crocetins
(carotenoid derivatives), the main volatile of safranal and the bitter taste
which is produced by picrocrocin.
• Since saffron is an expensive product, in various ways, it is cheated by the
dealers.
• Adulteration of food products includes adding any type of cheap materials
to expensive or valuable materials in order to reduce the amount of
expensive products and thus, produce products with lowest cost and the
highest profits.
10. • Adding or mixing of similar materials such as beet, pomegranate
fibers, red-dyed silk fibers, safflower, and marigold to red stigma of
saffron are the most common types of fraud in saffron production.
• Another way for adulteration, in order to increase the saffron mass, is
immersion of saffron fibers in honey, vegetable oils, or glycerin.
• Saffron color and aroma are determined by different equipment such
as UV-Vis spectrometry, HPLC, and gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry (GC-MS).
• However, these methods are expensive and require trained experts.
In the Middle Ages in Nuremberg,
whoever adulterated saffron with the
addition of less precious ingredients,
was burnt alive.
12. IMPORTANT PARAMETER
• aroma
• bitterness and
• coloring strength
Owing to its colouring properties,
in ancient times it was used as a
cosmetic, as well as for dyeing
fabric and leather.
13. ELECTRONIC NOSE TECHNOLOGY
• A new analytical technique has been developed which is called the
electronic nose that could detect and specify complex odors using
some arrays of sensors.
• The first work for odor simulation was published in 1982 by Persaud
and Dodd.
• E-nose systems are used to simulate mammalian olfactory response
to aromas and use an array of chemical gas sensors to give a
response and then pattern recognition algorithm for the analysis of
volatile compounds is applied.
• Electronic nose offers facilities for fast and precise development, life
scale determination, quick recognition of undesirable
microorganisms, and fast decay identification
14. • Saffron aroma is released by the metabolic processes at the
processing and storage duration.
• Metabolic processes of microorganisms in food and agricultural crops
leads to produce volatile organic compounds.
• It is also possible to determine fake and original saffron by sensing
these compounds in the headspace and several researchers have
used electronic nose to determine fake and original products such as
sunflower oil, corn oil, sesame oil, tea, coffee, etc.
