Discuss chow in general, including nationally available products, internet & mail-order, national cuisines and tips for chowhounding.
Start New Threadhas anyone found a good supplier of saffron on ebay, like some of the vanilla bean sources there?
By Fritz
on Jan 4, 2012 06:47 AM
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I bought saffron on Ebay once and I'm not sure I'd do it again. The saffron was Kashmiri - so maybe it's just not as good as Spanish or Iranian - but it had such a perfumey aroma (not in a good way) that I couldn't get past it. Almost as if it were stored with some heavily scented substance before shipping. I suspect that there may be some decent saffron to be had on Ebay but my experience wasn't a great one.
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I haven't bought any on eBay, but I do get Kashmiri saffron directly from relatives in India, and it's not excessively/artificially aromatic. Don't know if yours might have been 'enhanced' or if I've been lucky?
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The saffron I got wasn't exactly "enhanced" - more like contaminated. The scent was perfumey, not anywhere near the aroma of a nice saffron. It overpowered any of the natural scent the saffron may have actually had. I'm not saying Kashmiri saffron is bad stuff - it may be very good, in fact - but the stuff I got wasn't nice at all. Possibly due to improper storage or, I suppose, an attempt to disguise an inferior product.
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The following article has some hints on how to tell apart the fake and the real: http://www.couriermail.com.au/lifesty...
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I wonder if some of what's on offer as Kashmiri isn't in fact the Afghani product we hear about now.
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