Kashmir Saffron (Mongra Grade)
A few strands, bloomed in warm milk — colour and scent open slowly.
₹ 450
- Grade
- Mongra
- Origin
- Pampore · Kashmir
- Harvest
- Oct – Nov
- Handling
- Hand-picked, GI tagged
Why it costs moreEvery thread is a red stigma tip. One flower gives three, all picked by hand at dawn across a harvest window of about a fortnight.
- Ships in 1–2 working days
- Harvest: October – November
- Small-batch packed
- FSSAI details on pack
- Region
- Pampore, Kashmir Valley
- Harvest
- October – November · hand-picked stigmas only
- Batch
- On every pack
- Packed
- By hand, small-batch · Surat, Gujarat
- Use
- Bloom a few strands in warm milk or water before adding
- Storage
- Airtight, away from light, steam & heat
The red stigma with the pale style still attached. The yellow-to-white length carries no colour and no aroma — it is weight, sold at saffron prices.
Only the red to deep-orange stigma tips. The pale style is cut away and discarded, so every thread in the jar is the part that does the work.
You can check it yourself: tip the jar out on white paper. Mongra is red to deep orange along its whole length. Any yellow or white tail is style. And in warm water real saffron gives up its colour slowly while the thread stays red — a dye bleeds at once and leaves the thread pale.
Altitude is not a badge — it is a growing condition. Thin air, cold nights and a short, sharp autumn on the karewa plateaus give the crocus a slower, more stressed season than the warm plains of Khorasan or La Mancha, and that is the terrain the Kashmir Geographical Indication protects.
Mongra is a grade, not a village. A saffron flower carries three red stigmas joined to a pale yellow style; Lachha grade keeps both, Mongra keeps only the red. Discarding the style costs weight, which is exactly why it costs more — and why what reaches you is colour and aroma rather than filler.
Ours is grown on the karewas outside Pampore — raised plateaus of clay and gravel at 1,600 – 1,800 metres, with poor soil, cold nights and a short autumn. Crocus sativus does not mind. It flowers for roughly three weeks in October and November, and for those three weeks the fields are picked entirely by hand, before the sun is high, with the stigmas separated the same day.
It takes somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 flowers to make one kilo. That arithmetic, not scarcity marketing, is why saffron is weighed in grams.
Kashmiri saffron received its Geographical Indication in 2020, covering the Pampore, Budgam, Kishtwar and Srinagar belt. The tag exists because the market has a long history of adulteration — dyed maize silk, safflower, coloured thread sold by the gram. An address is the simplest defence a buyer has.
In the kitchen. Bloom a few strands in warm milk or water for ten minutes before they go anywhere near the pan. Give it that time and the liquid turns amber before the food ever sees it. Never drop strands dry into hot oil.
Mongra is the purest hand-picked grade of Kashmir saffron — only the deep-red stigma, with none of the pale, flavourless style attached. Grown on the karewa (highland plateau) around Pampore in the Kashmir Valley, each flower yields just three stigmas, hand-plucked at dawn during a harvest window of barely three to four weeks. Geographical Indication tagged, because the altitude, the karewa soil and the sudden Kashmir winter together produce a colour and aroma that cannot be replicated elsewhere.
A few strands are enough. Bloom in a spoon of warm milk or water for ten minutes before stirring into kheer, biryani or a festive glass of doodh — blooming unlocks the colour and aroma that dry strands alone won't give.
Dispatched within 1–2 working days. Store away from light, steam, and the stove — aroma belongs in the jar, until the pan.
Is this 100% pure?
Yes. Single-ingredient, single-origin, with no added colour, no preservatives and no fillers. Batch number, harvest month and FSSAI details are printed on every pack.
Do you ship across India?
Yes. Orders are packed and dispatched within 1–2 working days.
How should I store it?
Airtight, away from light, steam and the stove. Aroma belongs in the jar, until the pan.
