White Lotus Aromatics Newsletter - Sept. 7, 2001
NewsNeNwsNNewsletter Archive ewsl
Jasmin grandiflorum
Oh fields! Oh fields of Grasse, oh fertile hills,
Oh cultivated crags, oh silvery sources. Oh myrtles, oh jasmines,
oh forests of orange flowers...
Abbe Cognet: A. Godeau, Bishop of Grasse and Vence(1605-1672)
Walking aimlessly through the town of Grasse... For a long time we follow low, crumbling walls, walls behind which we sense the presence of some garden from a Thousand and One Nights, with its agaves, jasmines, fountains and zulejos(blue wall tiles). The multitude of worlds ruling over the multitude of flowers. The greenery studded with white jasmines. The earth balmy with their delicious nocturnal sigh. The dominant scent was a profound and fine as the light. Two kindsof sweetness emerged; the light and the perfume. The rose would give up its soul to the sun, the jasmine to the stars.... Francis de MIOMANDRE: Grasse, 1928
Description of Jasminum Genus
Description (from Flora of China):
Trees or erect or scandent shrubs, evergreen or deciduous. Branchlets terete
or angular and grooved. Leaves opposite or alternate, rarely whorled, simple,
3-foliolate, or odd-pinnate; petiole usually articulated. Inflorescences basically
cymose, in panicles, racemes, corymbs, umbels, or heads; bracts subulate or
linear, sometimes leafy. Flowers bisexual, usually heterostylous, usually fragrant.
Calyx campanulate, cupular, or funnelform, 4-16-lobed. Corolla white or yellow,
rarely red or purple, salverform or funnelform; lobes 4-16, imbricate in bud,
sometimes doubled in cultivation. Stamens 2, included, inserted about middle
of corolla tube; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed, introrse. Ovules 1 or
2 in each locule. Style filiform; stigma capitate or 2-lobed. Fruit a berry,
didymous or one half aborted. Seeds without endosperm; radicle downward.
Simple description of Jasminum grandiflorum
Jasminum grandiflorum, (Spanish Jasmine, Royal Jasmine). A shrub/vine with very
fragrant white flowers, pink in bud. Excellent everbloomer. Flowers used in
perfumery. Glossy, dark green pinnate foliage; leaflets 5-7. Grows well in sun,
with a well drained soil. Hardy here to 17° F, in a protected location. Native,
perhaps, to Arabia. Zones 8-11.
Technical Description of Jasminum grandiflorum
Jasminum officinale Linnaeus var. grandiflorum (Linnaeus) Stokes; J. officinale
f. grandiflorum (Linnaeus) Kobuski. Shrubs scandent, 2-4 m. Branchlets terete,
angular or grooved. Leaves opposite, pinnatipartite or compound with 5-9 leaflets;
petiole 0.5-4 cm; leaflet blade ovate or narrowly so (terminal one usually narrowly
rhomboid), 0.7-3.8 ? 0.5-1.5 cm, base cuneate or blunt, apex acute, acuminate,
or blunt, sometimes mucronate. Cymes terminal or axillary, 2-9-flowered; bracts
linear, 2-3 mm. Pedicel 0.5-2.5 cm, middle pedicel of cymes conspicuously shorter.
Calyx glabrous; lobes subulate-linear, (3-)5-10 mm. Corolla white, salverform;
tube 1.3-2.5 cm; lobes often 5, oblong, 1.3-2.2 cm. Fruit not seen. Fl. Aug-Oct.
2n = 26*.
Images of Jasminum grandiflorum-
http://mobot.mobot.org/cgi-bin/search_vast?w3till=23000153_001.gif
nice line drawing
http://www.perfumersworld.com/flowers/jasmi.htm
nice image of flowers
http://members.aol.com/parijata/jasmin.html good image of flower http://wpni01.auroraquanta.com/pv/caledonia/perfume?sess_id=20093655267763650&
key_id=61&img=332
baskets of jasmin
http://wpni01.auroraquanta.com/pv/caledonia/perfume?sess_id=20093655267763650&
key_id=61&img=330
harvest
http://wpni01.auroraquanta.com/pv/perfume?sess_id=&img=333
mounds of jasmin
Jasmine Harvest
"As we proceeded toward the Nilgri Hills and entered into the countryside proper
the scenery became more and more beautiful. This region of India is again another
unique type of environment different than any we had yet encountered. It is
a bit drier, less humid than the coastal region we had passed through on our
journey to Tanjore and Madurai and totally different than the high mountain
regions of Kodikannal. India is a land with an incredible diveristy of micro
climates, soil types, and topographies and on this short tour we can only explore
a few of them. Our bus came to a halt under some tall shade trees where a dirt
road diverged from the paved country lane upon which we were traveling. Guided
by our hosts, we walked up into another world which could just have well existed
centuries ago.
The sun had been up for a short time when we entered the grounds of the immaculately
kept Jasmin grandiflorum plantation owned by our hosts. I think we were all
stunned by this scene of eternal beauty. The angelic petals of the delicate
Jasmin grandiflorum buds had quietly opened in the early morning hours and the
perfume floating across the fields was of an etheric odor. It is true that a
well made absolute can catch a little of this essence but it can never substitute
for the living experience of being in the presence of the plants and the environments
in which they grow.
All nature seemed to welcome us with gladness and as we roamed through the fields
we not only inhaled the intoxicating beauty of this etheric essence but our
eyes feasted on hummingbirds, butterflies, coconut palms, hillocks, and many
other scenes of exquisite beauty. Soon we had our baskets in hand and were participating
in the morning harvest. Plucking each delicate blossom one by one, we were initiated
into the astounding reality that it takes 8 million blossoms to produce one
kilo of absolute. I do not thing any of us will ever use an absolute with anything
but the greatest of respect after seeing what a real jasmin harvest entails.
Here we were able to see a truly organic gardening operation. Mr. Sivaramakrishna
and his family were the pioneers of organic gardening practices in their region
and have achieved astounding success by using green manure crops, natural compost,
neem sprays, and other neem products. Both in the field and in a more formal
presentation given while we had a light breakfast in the fields, he explained
to us how they had been able to successfully bring organic gardening practices
into the cultivation of Jasmin grandiflorum and Jasmin sambac. I think that
this work that they have done will become a model for many other farms in India
as it is practical, cost effective, and draws upon locally available resources.
Each day has been one of increasing happiness and beauty for us and somehow
visiting the Jasmin grandiflorum fields took that experience to another plane.
It was like being a child again in the most wonderful sense of the word.
If one has any doubt about the true therapeutic value of fragrance they should
just stand in a jasmin field at dawn surrounded by the grand beauty of nature,
absorbing the energy of an ancient land through every pore of their body and
they will certainly know that there can be no more perfect window into a world
of gentle peace and happiness. There can be no doubt that one has then to hold
that window open through their own personal aspiration but first one's heart
must be touched by this type of experience to remember that beyond all dark
shadows and difficulties is a life of true innocense, purity and delight.
Our morning adventure continued on with visits to two more small farms where
Jasmin grandiflorum and Jasmin sambac were being cultivated. At each place our
lives touched and intermingled with the farming people. The bright smiles and
glowing eyes of these people of the earth and sky spoke volumns. In their company
ones pride fades away. One cannot think they are somehow superior to these simple
folk, rather one becomes humbled before them because in their lives is written
a nobility and dignity that one seldom encounters in the western world." From
the journal I kept of our South India trip in 1999
"Picking, a long amd delicate operation, was done only with both hands because
the flowers are very delicate and fragile and must be picked one by one by the
stem to prevent the petals falling off. When you pick, you must not take the
buds, otherwise the jasmin will not flower the following day. Its the agility
of the fingers which counts. I, myself, pick with both hands with the basket
attached to the waste. I make little fistfuls but when there are a lot of flowers,
I manage to pick 7-8 kg on a good day. Once picked the flowers were laid in
a basket holding 100 grams attached to the waist by a sting. An experienced
picker would manage to take 25 flowers in each nand before empting it all into
her basket. This required flexibility of the fingers only acquired through habital
use. A good picker thus manged to harvest 500 grams to 800 grams of jasmine
an hour, equal to 6-7 kilos of flowers per day.
From Jasmine by Marie Christine Grasse
http://www.actahort.org/books/454/454_42.htm
excellent paper on effect of harvest time on chemical composition of Jasmin
grandiflorum
Other_info
Ethnobotany Use
Emmenagogueue Jasminum grandiflorum India
Diuretic Jasminum grandiflorum Italian
Deobstruent Jasminum grandiflorum Spanish
Vermifuge Jasminum grandiflorum Sanscrit
Perfume Jasminum grandiflorum French
Astringent Jasminum grandiflorum English
Cancer Jasminum grandiflorum India
http://ars-genome.cornell.edu:80/cgi-bin/WebAce/webace?db=ethnobotdb&class=Taxon&object=Jasminum
%20grandiflorum
*Jasminum grandiflorum in Ayurveda
The plant is bitter, astringent, acrid, thermogenic, aphrodisiac, antiseptic,
andoyne, depurative, emmanagogue, emollient, diruectic, anthelmintic, deobstruant,
dentifrice, suppurative and tonic. The roots are useful in cephalalgia, vitiated
conditions of vata, paralysis, facial paralysis, mental debility, chronic constipation,
flatulence, strangury, sterility, dysmenorrhoea, ringworm, leprosy, skin diseases
and giddiness. The leaves are useful in dontalgia, fixing loose teeth, ulcerative
stomatitis, leprosy, skin diseases, ottorrhoea, otalgia, strangury, dysmenorrhoea,
ulcers, wounds and corns. The floewer are refridgerant and ophthalmic. They
are useful stomatopathy, cephalopathy, odontopathy, ophthalmopathy, leprosy,
skin diseases, pruritus, strangury, dysmenorrhoea, ulcers and vitiated conditions
of pitta.
Indian Medicinal Plants Volume 3 A Compendium of 500 species
*Please note that when such information is given it refers to that plant with
a very comprehensive system of diagnosis and treatment. The individual plant
plays one part in the whole process of healing and so such information needs
to be placed in that context
enfleurage
SYLLABICATION: en·fleu·rage
PRONUNCIATION: nfl-räzh, -räj
NOUN: A process in making perfume in which odorless fats or oils absorb the
fragrance of fresh flowers.
ETYMOLOGY: French, from enfleurer, to saturate with the perfume of flowers :
en-, causative pref.; see en1 + fleur, flower (from Old French flour, from
Latin fls, flr-; see bhel-3 in Appendix I).
Enfleurage(Simple Explanation) Some flowers, such as jasmine or tuberose,
have such low contents of essential oil or are so delicate that heating them
would destroy the blossoms before releasing the essential oils. In such cases,
an expensive and lengthy process called enfleurage is sometimes used to remove
the essential oils. Flower petals are placed on trays of odorless vegetable
or animal fat, which will absorb the flowers' essential oils. Every day or every
few hours, after the vegetable or fat has absorbed as much of the essential
oil as possible, the depleted petals are removed and replaced with fresh ones.
This procedure continues until the fat or oil becomes saturated with the essential
oil. Adding alcohol to this enfleurage mixture separates the essential oil from
the fatty substance. Afterwards, the alcohol evaporates and only the essential
oil remains.
http://www.oneplanetnatural.com/distillation.htm
Enfleurage(More Complete Explanation) Processing the jasmine flowers
was the most delicate problem of the aromatic raw materials industry. "Enfleurage"(cold
saturation) the standard treatment, gave a better output in terms of quality
and quantity. In fact, the fragile nature of the jasmine excluded the use of
traditional processes such as maceration or distillation. It was the process
which most faithfully restord the scent of the flowers. "Enfleurage work in
a manner closest, relatively speaking, to the olfactroy tract itself of the
mucus membranes of our noses, where the surfaces absorb the sweet-smelling fragrances
given off by the flowers one is smelling for a very short period of tiem. Our
olfactory tract does not suddenly make contact with all the main aromas of the
flowers by braking open fragrant cells, and the fat used in the saturation process
also works like the mucous membranes by taking in their sweet smelling fragrances,
almost without being in contact with the flowers, up to the point where these
fragrances are no longer given off." Parfums de France An essentially female
workforce carried out this cold saturation work. They began by preparing the
fat, a mixuture of beef tallow and lard, washed, poured off on to canva and
cast in moulds. It was heated in a steam still until completely melted, and
diluted with benzoin and alum. The fat was poured into copper kettles, and stirred
until in thickened and was set aside until the time when it was used in wooden
containers covered thereafter with tinfoil. This work kept the perfumery busy
for a large part of the month of May, at orange blossom time. "Cold saturation
on lard hardened by beef tallow was carried out in a large, noisy, framinmg
room. No machinery. Nothing but manual work on tooling wooden and glass frames."
Then came the framing, with frames made up of plates of glass of 50 to 60 cm
on each side mounted on a wooden frame. Towards the end of June, the fat or
pommade was spread on each side of the pane of glass then streaked with a wooden
comb to harden before the first consignments. "A woman would smear the white
fat over the glass with a steel spatchula. With a five-pronged box-wood fork,
she would cross-comb it it give it a greater area of contact with flowers. The
woman workers used to draw these lines with their nails. The wooden tool copied
their former movements with fingers parted, movements claimed for a long time
to be irreplacable." The first flowers would arrive at the factory around the
end of July, where they were immediately sifted. All the leaves, all loose or
damaged petals, crushed, old and damp flowers had to be removed to avoid fermentation.
The flowers were then taken to enfleurage(saturation) workshop where they were
arranged on frames, 50 to 100 grams to each frame. As soon as they were stacked
they were hermetically sealed on top of each other. Thus the perfume exhaled
on the part of the flower not in contact with the fat was absorbed by the fat
of the frame above. Piles of 30 to 40 frames werw made in this way. One hundred
frames constituted a workship were approximately 10 women worked. After 24-48
hours, shedding began by tapping the frame against the table several times so
that most of the flowers fell down. The others were removed by hand with finger
tips. Everyday in order to renew the area of contact with fat, it was streaked
with a wooden large fork before further shedding started. This operation was
repeated until fat was saturated. "Perfection in speed at which they worked
was not demanded of them., but they were asked to finish the quantity of flowers
brought in from the gardens within the day." The fat was then removed from the
frame with wooden spatula. They would then wash the pommade which had been thinned
with alcohol. In a mixer fitted with an agitator, the fat was added, diluted
by its own weight in alcohol., and it was all mixed together for 24 hours consecutively.
After decanting, the excess alcohol was collected and cooled in an ice box to
solidify the residual fatts. The alcohols used for was then filtered and set
aside. The perfumed alcohol, was kept. This was callled the absolute frame or
pommade. The enfleurage (cold saturation) technique involved a large number
of frames(80,000 at Chiris, 70,000 at Roure) and the use of a large workforce.
One worker tell how in 1930 up to 200 seasonal female workers were taken on
to do this work.
From Jasmine by Marie Christine Grasse
*For those of you who wish to go even deeper into the subject of Enfleurage
you can acquire it through reading Volume 1, Essential Oils by Ernest Guenther
http://www.museesdegrasse.com/MIP/html_ang/techno_enfleurage.htm
wonderful images of enfleurage process that can be clicked on and expanded
http://www.ac-orleans-tours.fr/physique/parfum/enfleurage.html
stunning images of enfleurage process Note on Enfleurage Production in our times
There is at least one company in France still producing Jasmine and Tuberose
by the enfluerage process but it is very expensive as compared with the solvent
extrtaction technique. One can expect to pay $250-$300 per ounce for a true
enfleurage product if they can locate it. It is distinctly different in olfactory
characteristics from the Jasmin absolutes by solvent extraction Note on Solvent
Extraction Process Most of your are aware of the basics of solvent extraction
of delicate flowers to produce what is known as a concrete. The concrete is
then washed with alcohol, chilled, filtered and the alchohol vacummed off to
produce the absolute.
I have written extensively on this and you can access that information
in these two places-
http://members.aol.com/parijata/jasmin.html
http://members.aol.com/parijata/absolutes.html
http://www.ac-nice.fr/physique/parfum/solvant.htm
nice images of solvent extraction process
Jasminum grandiflorum in the world today
It use to be that Grasse, France was the world leader in production of Jasmine
absolutes and pommades. Today the centers of production have changed to countries
like Egypt, India, Morocco and South Africa. Still some small amount is produced
in Grasse of very high quality(and cost) All the above mentioned countries also
produce beautiful Jasmin grandiflorum concretes and in some cases absolutes.
Several old companies in and around Grasse still practice the high art and craft
of absolute production and do their work by procuring concretes from India,
Egypt, etc to which they have close links having, in many cases, supporting
overseas production of these precious products. As with each one of these newsletters,
there are volumes more that can be said but I think the real idea is to inspire
each one of your to go deeper into the subject from your own particular angle
of interest and expertise.
To say hello, one generally says: sabah il khair(good morning), one replies
either sabah il khair or sabah il nour(morning of light) To close friends one
may reply, sabah il-fil wal yasmin(the morning of Arabian jasmine and the jasmine)
The sight of it makes one happy, its generous odor cheers, delights, communicates
good spirits and hope: "smell the scent of jasmin and forget your troubles".(shil
il ham) is what is said to someone who is anxious
The White Robe of Beirut-
Aida Kanafani-Zahar