What Is the Price of Saffron? A Detailed Guide to Identifying Genuine vs. Fake
Saffron has a fairly wide range of medicinal uses: it invigorates blood and resolves stasis, nourishes blood, helps prevent cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and regulates liver and kidney function. Among these, its beauty and skin-care benefits, as well as its powerful effect on irregular menstruation, have won it the favor of many women. But many people are not familiar with its price trends, and they worry about being cheated or buying counterfeit goods. Below, the editor introduces saffron prices and how to tell the real thing from the fake.
Saffron Prices
The main channels for buying saffron on the market today fall into tourist markets, time-honored pharmacies, herbal medicine markets, Taobao, and official saffron websites. Prices and quality differ from channel to channel.
Tourist markets: 100 yuan per gram up to several hundred; quality varies widely, some good and some bad, and it is easy to get ripped off by unscrupulous sellers.
Time-honored pharmacies: around 100 yuan per gram, with average quality. If you have no other purchasing channel, buying from a time-honored pharmacy is recommended, as the risk of being cheated is relatively low.
Herbal medicine markets: the wholesale price of saffron in herbal medicine markets is about 12,000 yuan to 30,000 yuan per kilogram. Quality in herbal medicine markets can still be guaranteed, though there are unscrupulous sellers too, so choose a merchant with a good reputation when buying.
Taobao: around a few dozen yuan per gram. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, so buying on Taobao is not recommended.
China Saffron Network: 50 yuan per gram. Saffron from China Saffron Network is mostly premium-grade saffron imported from Iran, officially certified, with guaranteed quality and affordable prices, so buying there is recommended.
How to Tell Real from Fake
Observation method
The part of saffron used as medicine is the stigma of the pistil, dried into red filaments. The tip of each filament is like a trumpet mouth, and it gives off a faint fragrance.
Water-soaking method
The water-soaking method is the best way to tell real from fake. Although saffron filaments are red, the water turns golden yellow after soaking, a very beautiful color. Most counterfeit products use dyes to achieve a fake appearance of authenticity; after soaking, the water is pale red or deep red, and cloudy.
The above covers saffron prices and how to tell real from fake. We hope it is helpful to everyone. If you are interested in this article, please keep following this site, which will continue to update related content.