Harvest 101 ** Was: EOs From Dried Materials / Tinctures

[Guest guest]

Hi Tina, other good folks ..

 

I think that the original intent of this post might have gotten lost ..

or at least we slid the thread into another important area .. which

might cause some of the new folks to become confused. We're talking

Tinctures and Distillation .. too different animals so the source and

handling of the raw aromatic materials will be different.

 

Lemme try to show the differences and clear up some questions that have

not yet been asked by presenting a dose of Reality. ;-)

 

The below will take some folks to the school house but I think its info

that the new folks need in order to get a mental picture of what is

really going down.

 

Anya's previous post concerning the info Suzanne Catty put out in this

or that pub or in her book on Hydrosols is right on .. Catty has put out

incorrect information and I firmly believe that it shows she is merely

regurgitating misinformation found in other incorrect novels .. she is

not writing based on personal knowledge. I won't do that .. the below

information on harvesting is where its really at .. its not theoretical

and its not where we wish it was .. its how it is. Regardless of the

fact that some members hold Catty in great regard, her info is incorrect

and regardless of how some members think or wish the plants from which

the oils they use were harvested and handled .. the below information is

totally correct.

 

As for harvest and processing of aromatics .. we need get into two

frames of mind .. one is that of the back yard gardener and the other is

that of the professional, commercial distiller.

 

>>If this is so, I'm confused as to why so many medicinal herbs

>>are better tinctured/used fresh, but that might not be so with

>>essential oil distillation.

 

Tinctured herbs are normally prepared in small batches .. folks have

the opportunity and time to give them tender, loving care (TLC).

 

Home made wine can be a loving project when one picks their own grapes,

squeezes them and processes them. But some squeamish folks might stop

drinking wine if they saw the real operation .. lots of bees go into the

squeezing. Same goes for Rose Blossoms .. lots of bees.

 

But we eat lots of whole bugs and bug parts daily .. I got to liking

them when I went through various Survival and Escape courses cause they

taste good and are fulla protein and low in cholesterol. ;-)

 

Contrary to the marketing hype of some EO sellers who wish to impress

buyers with esoteric Bovine Excrement .. and Young Living is included in

this category .. wild grown and commercially grown aromatics used to

produce bulk Essential Oil are not collected with TLC. If one is using

a small table top still and has a little backyard garden then it can be

done .. but not on a commercial scale and odds of you getting much EO

that is not produced commercially are not good.

 

There are no 16 year old virgins in long flowing gowns chanting Hari

Krishna and thanking the plants for their great sacrifice .. there is

nobody asking the plant if it would prefer to be distilled or used as a

tea or tinctured. What we do find is harvest of commercially grown

aromatics by the most efficient and cost effective means possible ..

which might be a machine .. and harvest of most wild grown aromatics via

a rip and tear method in some cases .. and a selective culling.

 

Look at the yield ratios of various wild grown aromatics. Oreganos

(depending on the variety) will yield a kilo of oil for every 60 kilos

of dried plant material distilled. Chaste (Vitex agnus castus) will

yield less than a kilo of oil for every 1,000 kilos of dried plant

material. Distillers of wild grown aromatics do not harvest these wild

grown plants .. the reasons are:

 

(1) Its time consuming, unskilled manual labor .. they have neither the

time nor desire to do it .. nor is it practical for them to do it. I

have harvested many types of wild grown aromatics here in Turkey .. its

damn hard work .. getting a bag of 5 kilos or so will wear you out.

 

(2) Most wild grown aromatics are found in Emerging Market and Third

World countries .. on public lands. The majority of those countries

assign certain areas to the administration of various villages. The

overall administration of those public lands normally in under the

jurisdiction of a form of Village or Rural Development Agency or (as is

the case here in Turkey) the Ministry of Forests. City folks and

commercial outfits are not allowed to trespass and rip off one of the

sources of income for the local residents .. if they try to do it .. the

Jandarma or the residents of the local village will stop them and they

will be in less trouble if its the Jandarma who grab them.

 

Any claim of folks selling oils from wild grown plants they harvested

themselves sounds strange to me. Better yet, it sounds like a dream.

Oh .. what the Hell .. its a Damn Lie! ;-)

 

The distillers contract with various village administrators (Khans or

Chiefs here in Turkey) and the villagers harvest the wild grown crops

and bring them to the still in large bags .. on large trucks. As for

oils made from single crops .. often a claim made by those who want to

give the impression that they have something special .. I'm not sure why

they even make such a claim because a single crop is no better than a

" batched " crop .. but maybe useless info impresses the unknowing ..

single crops (be they commercial or wild grown) are as rare as honest

politicians. The aromatics coming to the still will come from an area

perhaps 300-400 sq. kilometers .. even the Rose Blossoms brought in will

be from hundreds of small fields .. some fields yielding no more than

50-100 kilos or so of Blossoms .. and it takes near 4,000 kilos of Rose

Blossoms to produce a single kilo of Rose Otto.

 

The cost the stills pay for a single kilo of Rose Blossoms has dang near

doubled since I wrote the below .. and the pay received by those who

perform the EXTREMELY tedious labor of harvesting those blossoms has

likewise increased considerably .. I gotta update this as it was written

in 1999. http://www.av-at.com/distillation/rosadamascena1.html

 

More on that in Martin's article written after his visit with me ..

http://www.aromamedical.com/articles/rosedistillation.htm

 

And in the List Mama's articles after her trips to Turkey ..

http://www.av-at.com/stuff/triptoturkey.html .. even more can be found

at the bottom of the front page of this link.

 

Fortunately, the cost of Oregano has not increased much .. maybe 15%

since then .. Rosemary (which is more difficult to harvest) has gone up

at least 50% .. that's why I don't offer Turkish Rosemary EO now. Sage

(Salvia fruticosa) has increased around 20% .. and Turkish Lavender

(Lavandula stoechas) has become difficult to obtain because the French

purchase it afore its harvested .. that's one of the ways the French are

able to export more Lavandula angustifolia than they produce .. do a bit

of mixing here and there. Chaste (Vitex agnus castus) has gone up 100%

or so since I first offered it in 1995 .. but again, you gotta pick a

dang ton of the aromatic material to get 900 grams or so of oil .. and

Vitex is not found in large fields like Oregano .. its here and there so

there is a lotta walking required.

 

I'll point out now what has probably become obvious to those who have

read this far without falling asleep. ;-) If we consider the method of

harvest and transport to the still of large quantities of raw aromatic

material .. we can see that distillation of fresh aromatic materials is

not practical and not economic. There are some exceptions but they are

rare .. the Tunisian distillers of Rosemary take mobile stills to the

field .. they camp out and distill as they move from patch to patch.

But the logistics of such an operation does not fit the capabilities of

Rosemary oil producers in all areas.

 

There is a nice article on the Tunisian method .. from Martin's site ..

http://www.aromamedical.com/articles/rosemaryoil.htm

 

There are many more practical and economics driven reasons why the

distillation of dry aromatics is preferred .. I won't go into them now

as this post is long enough as it is.

 

> It may help to think of medicinal herbs a bit like food. In most cases

> the fresher, the better.

 

That makes sense .. like building a salad. And it fits in with tons of

information out and about proving that we normally get more nutritional

value from properly frozen veggies than we might get from those laying

out fresh in the veggie department .. depends on the time from harvest

to freezing and harvest to hitting the grocery display. And that

leaving veggies in the refrigerator for a day or two also destroys a lot

of the nutritional value.

 

> The essential oil is a very specific portion of the plant, while tincturing

> for medicinal use intends to draw many different components away from the

> plant, into the liquid.

>

> Tina

> _The Essential Herbal Magazine_ (http://www.essentialherbal.com/)

> _Essential Herbal Blog_ (http://theessentialherbal.blogspot.com/)

 

Actually .. there is not a lot of value in the plant after the essential

oil has been extracted .. there is roughage and some trace vitamins and

minerals but not enough that they would make a difference in our health

unless we were seriously malnourished to begin with.

 

What many folks don't know is that the Oregano (and perhaps some other

spices) they buy in little bottles from McCormick's and such in the USA,

are remnants of the distillation process. The spice factories here in

Turkey purchase the Oregano from distillers AFTER it has been distilled

and then it contains but traces of Carvacrol .. thus little odor. The

distilleries bring in tons of this material. The reason is that most

Americans aren't proficient when it comes to cooking with strong spices.

Oregano was not all that well known in the USA until after WW II when

the GIs came back from Europe with a taste for it .. same for Rosemary

and some other Mediterranean spices. If one uses the Oregano we use

here .. after being used to the that they get in the little bottles in

the USA .. they will overpower the taste of the food they cook. ;-)

 

I hope this might clear up some questions for the new folks .. and there

are a lotta new folks on this list .. its the fastest growing News Group

on the Net now.

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

Wholesale/Retail GC Tested EO & Rose Products, Tested Hydrosols and

other nice things shipped to you from our warehouse and store in

Downtown Friendsville, Maryland .. population: 597