Saffron is really a terracotta colour ... a red-orange ... but when it's sufficiently diluted it looks yellow-orange ... too weak a dilution and you wouldn't even notice it was there.

To get the strength of colour you see in dry saffron reproduced in the food it is in .. the taste would be unpleasent I think ... and you would have saffron strands covering everything too.

Saffron, Crocus sativus, is a crocus native to southern Europe which is cultivated for the tops of its pistils. There are several varieties, which bloom in late Autumn, including the typical orange-yellow 'saffron'-coloured ones and a violet-coloured type. The flower has three 2.5 cm pistils which are orange-red in colour. It is the tops of these which are removed from the flower and dried over charcoal to form 'hay-saffron' Dried saffron contains a red colouring matter, used as a dye and a perfume by the Romans. A further yellow extract was used for dyeing the garments of royalty in ancient Greece.

The yellow and red pigments are caroenoids, including zeaxanthin, lycopene (which is the red tomato pigment) and various alpha- and beta-carotenes, which are also red.

Saffron's golden yellow-orange colour is primarily due to alpha-crocin (crocetin, C20H22O4).

I know what you mean. I remember wondering why yellow food dye looked red in the container. Perhaps saffron is not red but just really concentrated yellow.