TARNICHANE, Bulgaria---It's 6:00 am but the pickers are already working in Rose Valley, home to Bulgaria's centuries-old rose oil industry, providing a vital ingredient for the global perfumes industry -- and now with EU protection.
"We go out very early as the roses must be picked while there's still dew on them. Then the yield is highest," says Totka Hristova, one of an army of workers on the foot of the Balkan Mountains in the damp cool of the early morning.
A couple of hours later and her day's work is already over. Once the sun rises high over the rows and rows of pink rose bushes, it gets too hot and the precious oil retreats down into the plant's roots.
"We only pick the fully open roses that are most oil-giving, the others we leave for tomorrow," the pensioner explains, her gloved hands deftly plucking and slipping the flowers into a plastic bag around her waist.
Practically all expensive perfumes the world over contain rose oil.
Bulgaria and neighbouring Turkey are the world's largest producers. The temperate climate and alluvial soils provide the ideal conditions for growing the best plant, the Damascus Rose, which is originally from Persia.
In a labour-intensive and delicate process unchanged since the days of the Ottoman empire in the 17th century, the petals are taken immediately to distilleries, where they are mixed with water and boiled in vast metal vats.
The vapours are then condensed and redistilled to separate the oil. But the process requires vast volumes of petals.
A good worker -- it can be tough finding enough staff -- can gather up to 25-30 kilograms (55-65 pounds) each morning, but 3,500 kilograms are needed to produce just one kilo of oil.
Bulgaria's annual production of about 1,500 kilograms of rose oil requires 5.25 tonnes of petals, grown on 3,800 hectares (9,390 acres) of plantations, mostly in the valley around the central Bulgaria town of Kazanlak.
- Boutique product -
Once this yellowish-green "liquid gold" is packaged into jars ready for sale, it's expensive, selling for 6,000-6,500 euros ($6,700-7,200) and above for a kilo.
The buyers -- from France, the United States and, increasingly, Asia -- are generally firms that make intermediary products which they then sell to companies like Christian Dior, Estee Lauder and Chanel.
"If we are talking about expensive perfumes -- it's part of all of them," said Juliana Ognyanova from Bulattars, a big rose oil exporter.
Surprisingly, the oil -- which contains over 370 components and has no synthetic alternative -- is not used for its aroma, which is quite cloying for most noses.
Instead it helps combine the huge number of natural and artificial ingredients in perfumes and to increase the amount of time it stays on the skin, according to expert Nikolay Nenov.
AFP
