Harvest starts before sunrise, when the petals hold the most oil. We went to see it for ourselves.
The pickers arrive at four. By the time the sun clears the hills, most of the day’s roses are already in sacks, because heat steals the oil the flowers worked all night to make.
Four tonnes for a kilogram
It takes roughly four tonnes of petals to make a single kilogram of rose absolute. That figure stays with you when you hold a bottle of Rose Ténèbre.
Why we use absolute
Absolute keeps the honeyed, slightly spicy facets that steam distillation loses. It is darker, and that darkness is exactly what we wanted.
