T/CATCM 002-2018 in English

本标准规定了西红花的性状、鉴别、浸出物、检查、含量测定、等级划分、检验方法。
本标准适用于西红花生产、流通以及使用过程中的质量分级。

Scope

A systematic review of saffron herbal medicine is conducted to provide sufficient theoretical basis for the formulation of quality grading standards. This includes investigating historical literature, current standard status, and surveys of origin and market conditions. Researching historical literature involves summarizing the origins, production areas, processing methods, etc., of the herbs; studying the current standard situation mainly covers the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, national pharmacopeias from various countries, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, departmental standards, and local standards to further analyze and summarize the existing status of saffron standards. Market research on actual production areas and market conditions is conducted to collect information such as origin, processing procedures, commodity grades, and market prices, organizing rules of price grading based on quality levels.

Collect multiple batches of herbs from major domestic and international production areas to ensure that the subjects for standard formulation studies are broadly representative. Currently, main saffron production areas in China include Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, etc., while foreign main production regions are Spain, Iran, Greece, Kashmir, and Macedonia.

Conduct systematic research on the stability and storage conditions of saffron herbs to study the content and corresponding variation patterns of key components like crocin-Ⅰ, crocin-Ⅱ, total safranal glycosides, and picric acid under different origins and storage conditions.

Develop quality standards by completing drafts and explanatory notes for standard proposals. Referencing the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and other current standards, modern analytical techniques such as liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) are employed to research characteristic/fingerprint patterns, chemical components, content determinations, etc. This aims to clearly define evaluation criteria for saffron quality grade standards and establish a quality control method based on characteristic compounds.

Establish grading standards by applying the established analytical methods to determine content of key components in saffron from different origins and batches, conducting quality grading according to component content results, combining origin and market product analysis to set technical indicators for dividing market saffron quality grades. Develop draft proposals for saffron quality grade standards and submit them for discussion.