Cultivation Projects
The Scent of Roses in the Desert
Rose Oil and Rose Water
In the rose delivery hall everything happens very quickly. In the background employees take charge of the sacks and empty the roses on to the clean floor of the hall. The flowers must not be allowed to get hot, otherwise they would lose too much of the costly rose essential oil. For this reason harvesting starts early in the morning and everyone in the Lalehzar valley who is not aged or infirm is roped in to help. Again and again the distillery workers turn the roses over to ensure that they remain cool. When stills in the neighbouring hall become free the flowers are hastily taken over and wrapped in blue tarpaulins to be heaved up into the upper vessel of the distilling apparatus. The vessels can hold 500 kilograms of rose flowers which boil for three hours with around 500 litres of water. Zahra Rosewater processes more than 900 tons of rose flowers each year. This work yields a precious 900 tons of rose water and about 150 litres of rose flower oil which are constantly analysed for quality in their own laboratory. "Our aim is to increase the yield to 1100 tons of rose flowers per year,” says Ali Mostafavi. The long-term contract of cooperation with WALA to purchase more than a third of the rose oil produced as well as dried rose blossoms makes him optimistic. New fields in
