What is Moroccan saffron, and is it the real thing?

Real saffron in Morocco has a home, and its name is Taliouine — a small town in the Anti-Atlas where, for a few weeks each autumn, the fields turn purple with crocus flowers. I visited at harvest once, before sunrise, because the flowers must be picked before the day's heat opens them fully. Families moved through the rows bent double, dropping blooms into baskets, their fingers already stained. Back at the house the women sat in a circle plucking the three crimson stigmas from each flower by hand. It takes roughly 150,000 flowers to make a single kilogram. Once you have watched that, the price stops shocking you.

Genuine saffron is unmistakable when you know what to look for: deep red threads, slightly trumpet-shaped at one end, with a heady aroma that is honeyed, hay-like and faintly metallic all at once. Drop a few threads into warm water and they release a golden-yellow colour slowly, over minutes, while the threads themselves stay red. That slow bleed is the test. The cheap stuff — bright orange powder sold by the scoop, or the red-and-yellow shredded "saffron" pressed on tourists — usually turns out to be safflower, turmeric or dyed corn silk. They colour fast and smell of nothing.

In the kitchen, a little is everything. I steep a pinch of threads in a spoonful of warm water or milk first, then add the infusion to the pot — never the dry threads straight in, which wastes the aroma. It scents the broth of a chicken tagine, gilds rice, deepens a fish stew, and is essential to a proper celebratory couscous. Used well, it gives that luxurious golden colour and a perfume that fills the room. Used badly, or faked, it gives nothing but disappointment.

My honest buying advice: skip the powder entirely and buy whole threads, ideally with Taliouine provenance, from a spice merchant who will let you smell and inspect them. A genuine gram is small, light and shockingly fragrant. If a vendor offers you a fat bag of "saffron" for a few dirhams, walk on — it is not saffron. Real Moroccan saffron is one of the country's quiet treasures, and worth seeking out properly.