Saffron is the Tibetan Rose?

I don't know since when, when you sell online, Vietnamese consumers are defaulted to saffron as Tibetan Hong Hoa. Maybe because people see that Tibet is famous for its Cordyceps products, they always give saffron the beautiful name of Tibetan Rose?! So is Saffron the Tibetan Rose after all?

The answer is no! Saffron is not a Tibetan Rose at all!

If saffron is not Tibetan Rose, what is the actual saffron product being sold and advertised in the market?

Saffon is the stigma of the saffron flower - belonging to the iris family. Purple saffron, orange red stigma. Saffron is a shrub, only about 20-30cm tall. Saffron is grown mainly in the Mediterranean (Spain, Greece, Turkey ...) and is especially suitable for the soil of Southwest Asia (Iran, Israel, Syria ..). Saffron only produces 3-4 flowers/plant, each flower has only 3 stigmas, so 1 saffron plant can only get 9-12 stigmas. Saffron cannot reproduce on its own, so from seed selection and planting, it must be done entirely by hand (so saffron is expensive, because 1g of saffron requires 170 flowers).

Rose petals are the petals of the plant Carthamus tinctorius - a member of the daisy family. Rose Flower bright yellow or orange red. Hong Hoa is an herb, 5-7 times higher than saffron (about 1 - 1.5m). Hong Hoa is grown mainly in China and Vietnam. Rose flowers are small clusters of flowers, and are taken from the petals, so 1 tree produces a lot of roses. Rose flowers reproduce naturally and are suitable for cool climates and highland soils (so it's not as rare as saffron).

Basically, these two plants do not have any common ground. Therefore, its medicinal properties and values ​​are also extremely different.