Surprising Health Benefits of Saffron + Saffron Tea Recipe [video] -

Hey guys I’m super excited to be sharing the great benefits of saffron with you.

I myself had heard of saffron and used it once or twice a long time ago, little did I know that it has been widely used as a medicinal plant to promote human health.

Given that I’m all about a wholistic (see the word whole) approach, I felt that sharing these health benefits would be super useful. So here we go 🙂

What Is Saffron?

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world — with 1 pound (450 grams) costing between 500 and 5,000 U.S. dollars.

The reason it’s so costly is because the harvesting process is labour intense, plus the harvest time is only about 4 weeks per year. Now that’s some scarcity!

Health Benefits of Saffron

1. Saffron Can Boost Your Mood

Saffron named the “sunshine spice” – not only because of its colour, but actually because of its proven ways to boost your mood and lift you up. Saffron is found to promote mental health “This study has shown that saffron has the potential to be an effective treatment with very few side effects for anxiety and depression in adolescents.” (source: If you suffer from mild depression, saffron may be able to help). Both the saffron petals and thread-like stigma appear to be effective against mild-to-moderate depression (source, source).

2. Saffron Could Be An Aphrodisiac

Saffron may have aphrodisiac properties for both men and women and may especially help those taking antidepressants. (source)

3. Saffron Is High In Antioxidants

Saffron is a powerful spice high in antioxidants. Saffron contains an impressive variety of plant compounds that act as antioxidants — molecules that protect your cells against free radicals and oxidative stress.

Notable saffron antioxidants include crocin, crocetin, safranal, and kaempferol (source).

Saffron Tea Recipe

This is a super simple basic tea recipe that you can make plenty variations to.

Saffron Tea Ingredients:

1 pinch of dried saffron
Hot water
Manuka Honey (roughly 1 teaspoon)

Saffron Tea Method:

Crumble / pulverise saffron with your fingers over tea cup.
Add 1/3 boiling hot water.
Stir, and let it sit for a while to diffuse.
Then add remaining hot water and 1 teaspoon of your favourite manuka honey, enjoy!

Variations:

Make a minty saffron tea by adding 5 mint fresh leaves to the above recipe.
Make an earthy herbal saffron tea by adding 1 pinch of cinnamon and 1 pinch of ginger to the above recipe (can also stir in some almond milk or milk of choice)
Make a chai latte version and add Saffron to “Healthy Chai Latte Recipe“.
Make saffron rose tea