Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a beautiful nymph named Smilace.
One day, during one of her wanderings in the woods near Athens, she comes across an unexpected visitor.
This is Crocus, a young and charming warrior.
The love between the two is lightning-fast and overwhelming.
Their relationship is as strong as it is opposed.
The Olympians don’t want to know about the crazy passion that burns between the two
Unable to separate them with good manners, they resort to forceful methods. The deities make the two’s lives hell, so much so that they push Crocus to commit suicide.
Smilace is desperate. Never had the inhabitants of Olympus seen one of her daughters dejected like that. Moved with pity, they would have united them by transforming them.
She in the plant with heart-shaped leaves and thorny branches (local sarsaparilla or smilax aspera) symbol of their tenacious but exasperated love.
He in a purple flower, proud in falling in love with a divinity, but with a heart the color of the sun in memory of the immortal love for his Smilace: saffron (or crocus sativus)
This Greek legend demonstrates well how the knowledge of saffron is rooted in millennia and in human history.
So much so that the first traces of saffron date back to the Bronze Age (3500 BC – approx. 1200 BC).
But it is with classical civilizations that this flower becomes precious.
In this era the orange/red stigmas were used in Greece as a dye for fabrics and as a gift to the gods. It is no coincidence that in the frescoes a goddess is responsible for harvesting the precious flower.
The Roman nobles, the usually lustful ones, used it for their own hot bath or to fill guests’ pillows.
Cleopatra used it for its cosmetic and aphrodisiac qualities.
It was also renowned as a medicine, useful in case of stomach ache, internal bleeding and urinary system infections.
It is thanks to the Phoenicians that this noble flower spread to all corners of the Mediterranean: from the dyers of Tyre, to the patrician noblewomen, to the Egyptian doctors, to the Greek priests and to the Arab traders.
Zafferano del Chianti purissimo in pistilli 0,1 gr – 100% Italiano
Il nostro zafferano è prodotto al 100% in Italia, nelle colline del Chianti fiorentino, precisamente a San Polo in Chianti (Fi)
Vasetto da 0,1 gr – contenuto è adatto per preparare almeno per preparare 4 porzioni abbondanti.
I vasetti di vetro sono adatti alla conservazione dello zafferano e sono molto carini come idea regalo.