Heritage · Mongra saffron

Three threads to a flower

Pampore’s red gold, picked at dawn and gone by frost.

For three weeks each autumn the fields of Pampore turn violet, and an entire town wakes before light. Each crocus opens for a single day and surrenders exactly three crimson threads. It takes roughly a hundred and fifty thousand flowers to fill a single kilo — which is why saffron has been weighed against gold for a thousand years.

Harvest window: ~ 3 weeks
Flowers / kg: ≈ 150,000
Threads / flower: 3
Crocin grade: 228+

A short history

Pre-500 AD
The first fields
Saffron reaches Pampore on the plateau’s karewa soil; legend credits two Sufi mystics with the first corms.
Mughal era
Court spice
Saffron becomes the signature of the Kashmiri kitchen and the Mughal table — kahwa, wazwan, the wedding pot.
2020
GI protection
Kashmir saffron earns its Geographical Indication tag, guarding the name against adulterated blends.
Today
Assayed, not assumed
Every lot is lab-tested to ISO 3632 for colour, taste and aroma before it carries our seal.

All red, no filler

Mongra is the pure stigma with the pale style cut away. Cheaper grades leave the yellow style on to add weight; it adds nothing to the cup. We pay for the cut, so you pay only for colour and aroma.

A dawn that cannot wait

The flower must be picked before the sun is high, then separated and dried the same morning — heat and delay both bleed the aroma. It is the most time-pressured harvest in the valley, and the least mechanised.