The Scent of Egypt’s Jasmine

Yasmine El Rashidi’s article Following the Scent of Egypt’s Jasmine recently appeared in the New York Times.

“In the middle of the Nile Delta, about 50 miles north of Cairo, the small town of Shubra Bilulah is encircled by roughly 300 acres of flower farms. The majority of them are growing Jasminum grandiflorum, a lacy vine with delicate white flowers that typically bloom between June and December and yield 90 percent of the country’s jasmine crop: roughly 2,500 tons of blossoms a year. The flowers are handpicked at dawn and then placed in solvent-filled extraction tanks where the liquid is distilled, steamed and cooled overnight before re-emerging as a waxlike paste that’s then shipped to perfumeries around the world.”

Read more here.