Saffron’s flavour and iodoform or hay-like fragrance result from the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal. It also includes crocin, a carotenoid pigment, which imparts a rich golden-yellow tint to textiles and dishes. Its recorded history is testified in 8th-century BC Assyrian botanical treatise compiled under Ashurbanipal, and it has been used and traded for over three millennia.

Saffron is known as an expensive spice, because of using human force instead of agricultural machineries.…