KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — About the same time that the leaves start falling, the flowers start blooming at Peace and Plenty Farm in Lake County and that is when owners Melinda Price and Simon Avery are at their busiest. The farming couple isn't making flower arrangements, they are picking the most expensive spice in the world: saffron.
“Ours is $75 a gram,” says Melinda Price.
While $75 a gram may seem like a lot, authentic, high-quality saffron is often more valuable than gold. Saffron spice comes from the red stigma inside the Crocus Sativus Flower and each one of the tiny flowers has just 3 stigmas inside.
“It takes 270 flowers to make just one gram,” says Price.
Not only do Price and Avery need a lot of flowers, they must pick fast. The flower bloom only lasts three to five weeks.
“50,000. That is what we were doing last year, 50,000 flowers a day,” says Simon Avery.
The work is not done once the flowers are picked. Each one of the red stamens must be delicately plucked from between the flower pedals.
Harvesters spend a good portion of their day sitting at a table processing saffron and putting the delicate stamen in small bowls. There everything will eventually dry for several days, which will reduce the stamens' already miniscule weight by more than half. The entire saffron crop can fit inside a large mason jar.
TAKE A TRIP ON BARTELL'S BACKROADS:
► See an interactive map of everywhere John has visited on the backroads
► Watch all of the Backroads videos
► Follow John on Facebook
Before farming, Avery was a bird biologist and Price worked in the tech industry. The extremely labor-intensive process of harvesting saffron was something the two didn’t quite understand when they planted the flower fields six years ago.
“We were producing a lot of saffron. We were the largest saffron producer in America but we weren’t selling it all, so we are downsizing now,” says Price.
Around 90% of the world's saffron is grown in the Middle East, Iran and Afghanistan where land and labor are cheap. Also, the market is flooded with low-quality, often fake saffron.
“Saffron is an expensive product, so people bulk it up with all kinds of weird stuff like other plants or often plastic. So, the cheap saffron, I would stay away from,” says Price.
To stay in business Price and Avery must sell produce and saffron-infused treats at their farm stand in Kelseyville, CA.
Saffron is no longer Peace and Plenty Farm’s main source of income but as tough as it is to grow, Avery and Price aren’t ready to give up.
“Even if sometimes we are sick of it there is still a magic to seeing these beautiful flowers come and go and the smell is beautiful,” says Price.
The Peace and Plenty farm stand is open most days. Stop in and ask for a tour of the saffron fields.
MORE FLOWERY FUN ON THE BACKROADS: California's only rose oil producer is in Healdsburg. Take a tour from bloom to perfume.
