Due to those higher costs, buying something from the US pretty much guarantees quality, i.e. the logic of "if someone has a successful business selling saffron

Due to those higher costs, buying something from the US pretty much guarantees quality, i.e. the logic of "if someone has a successful business selling saffron in the US, it must be pretty great saffron". This compares to other countries where you have to do work to figure out if you're getting the good Afghani saffron or the bad Afghani saffron. Personally, I buy mine from Diaspora Co. who source it from Kashmir. In that case, I'm replacing the brand reputation of the country with the brand reputation of the spice merchant.