Unique experience - come to the saffron harvest and collect the valuable red gold of Abruzzo with us

Meeting Point: San Pio delle Camere (Aq) 

The saffron flowers start to bloom in mid-October - their flowering period lasts about 3 weeks. Then the intensive flowering period begins, which lasts about 2 to 6 days. The flowers close at night and must therefore be picked early in the morning and by noon at the latest so that the flowers do not fall off prematurely. In order to maintain a high quality saffron, the picking at dawn is extremely important, as the flowers are closed and are still "sleeping".

Immediately after being picked, the flower baskets are brought to the flower hall, where they are carefully removed from the stigma and pistil by hand. This requires a lot of patience and a feeling for the delicate flowers. The white and yellow "threads" are not removed only the red ones.

Immediately after drying out, the threads are roasted at up to 60 degrees until all threads are dry. The temperature must not exceed 60 degrees and one must be very careful during this process, the threads must not be overheated.

The so-called "roaster" plays a truly delicate and important role in the production of high quality saffron. After roasting, the saffron threads have reduced their original weight by 80%. 5 kilograms of fresh threads then correspond to only 1 kilogram of the end product of the red gold. That is why saffron is such a valuable product.

What will we do together ...

At dawn....

at sunrise we will collect the flowers in the field

then they are spread out on a large table and touched 100 times in a ritual and dried in the heat of the fire.

program

8.30 a.m. Everyone on the field!

The saffron must be picked very early!

10.00 A little history ...

Saffron came to Abruzzo in the 13th century on the Navelli Plateau

11.00 a.m. harvest collection

We go to the factory with the baskets and gather around the round table.

Now we start with the thread and stamp detaching from the flower and then the roasting takes place

12.30 Saffron tasting

The high quality of saffron from Abruzzo is known all over the world.

Now we are learning to cook with saffron.

1.00 p.m. Dessert tasting

Finally, a wonderful dessert with saffron should pamper our palate.