Saffron is a kind of expensive spice and therapeutic agent. In order to establish a set of methods to evaluate the quality of saffron, High Performance Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (HPLC/MS) were used to identify the apocarotenoids extracted from saffron stigmas. TOPSIS method was applied to evaluate the qualities of saffron. The conditions of HPLC/MS and chemical fingerprints of saffron had been established. The 14 chromatographic peaks and 13 main apocarotenoids of saffron with high reproducibility, stability and specificity were confirmed. The qualities of 40 kinds of saffron from different countries and regions were ranked.
Keywords: Saffron; chromatography; crocin; picrocrocin; safranal.