Saffron, often dubbed the 'red gold,' holds the title of the world's most expensive spice. Its hefty price tag is justified ...

Tucked in a valley beneath the snow-capped Himalayas of the Indian Kashmir region is the town of Pampore, famed for its farms ...

Nestled in a picturesque valley beneath the snow-capped Himalayas lies Pampore, a town in the Kashmir region, celebrated as ...

There is new interest in growing saffron among small farmers in search of a cash crop, and among cooks and gardeners seeking ...

separate — saffron is dehydrated or dry stigma. The stigma is the female part of flower. You have to separate that stigma, dry that. And for all of these procedures, you need hand works ...

As well as a spectacular location, Pampore is India's centre for saffron - a spice so valuable that it is sometimes called red gold. Derived from the crocus plant, saffron fetches around $1,500 ...

Unsure which plants were part of individuals' makeup routines in the past? Take a look at a few herbs and flowers that were ...

Rumi Spice The tiny rust-red stigmas need to be painstakingly separated from the petals, stamens and the rest of the flower head Their saffron is now doing well with specialist buyers and high end ...

Bulb-like corms, at top, produce saffron crocuses. Each purple flower contains three red stigmas, which are dried and cured to make saffron.Credit...Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times ...

And it can take 40 hours of hard manual labor to produce just 1 kilogram of high-quality saffron. Growing the plants isn't exactly easy either. David Smale: They're actually called corms ...