Saffron: The Most Expensive Spice in the World, Picked by Hand

Saffron is the three red stigmas of a crocus, picked out of the flower by hand, and it takes an enormous number of flowers to make a kilo — which is the whole reason for the price. In La Mancha the flowers open for a few weeks in late October, are picked at dawn before they wilt, and are stripped the same day in an operation called the monda. The strands are then toasted slowly over low heat rather than dried in the sun, which is what gives Manchego saffron its aroma, its safranal content and its colouring power. It is sold only in strands, never ground.