The Flower That Started a War

The world’s most expensive spice actually comes from a flower.

Saffron is worth about $5,000 a pound. In 2026, premium Iranian saffron sells for $5,800 to $7,200 per pound at wholesale. Top grade Kashmiri saffron can hit $10,000 at retail.

Each flower bloom only gives you three red threads. Those threads are the stigmas, the part where the flavor and smell develop. The rest of the flower is useless for spice.

If you wanted to make a single pound, you’d need more than 75,000 flowers. Some estimates go up to 225,000 depending on the crop and how carefully you harvest. The flowers open in October, bloom for just two or three days, and must be picked before sunrise.

They can’t be picked by machine. No one has ever invented a machine delicate enough to harvest saffron without destroying it. So for thousands of years, they’ve only ever been harvested by hand. One French farmer estimates each gram of saffron takes an hour of work. That means a pound represents about 450 hours of human labor, all done in a three week window each autumn.

In the 1340s, the Black Death terrorized Europe. And people believed saffron could help fight the plague. Medieval medical theory held that saffron could ward off disease, balance humors, and treat everything from melancholy to pestilence. Demand skyrocketed. Venice and Genoa imported massive shipments from Rhodes and the Mediterranean.