For thousands of years jasmine flowers have been associated with joy, happiness, love and splendor. Sweet and captivating, the dainty white blossoms are popular in bridal bouquets around the world. They are also used in religious ceremonies.
Right now, these jasmine buds don’t smell like anything. But once they blossom, producers in India process their coveted aroma into one of the priciest oils in the world. Just 1 kilogram of jasmine oil can cost over $5000. It’s a key ingredient in luxury perfumes.
But to get 1 kilogram of some jasmine oil, need to pluck over 5000 buds.
What does jasmine smell like?
For hundreds of years, jasmine has been used in India to make garlands and headpieces for special occasions. Its scent is sweet, fruity, and floral, blending well with other fragrances. And while India grows over 80 varieties of jasmine, Jasmine grand forum and sambas are two of the most commercially valuable. It’s been considered very divine.
And sambas especially, even amongst other flowers, is considered one notch superior. It is the most preferred flower. It’s the joyful scent.
Jasmine sambas thrives in Madurai, the jasmine capital of India. Like any flower, jasmine produces a strong scent only after it blooms. The jasmine buds are mostly used, whether it be garlands or oil extraction. Jasmine is a night-blooming flower.
To maximize the harvest and ensure the buds make in to the markets in time, harvesters head to the fields early. Only the right bud blooms that day. Otherwise, it’s not going to bloom. So if it does not bloom, no fragrance. In Harvesting the buds, the work must be done gently, by hand, so as not to damage the buds.
A kilo of jasmine, just to give you perspective, will have about 5000 to 6000 independent flowers. For 1 kilogram of jasmine oil, needs 1 metric ton, or 1000 kilograms, of flowers.
The first step is to spread them out with rakes, and then again with their hands and feet. Spreading out the buds is crucial to preserving them. Leaving them in a big pile would generate heat, which would again cause them to wilt.
The minute buds will start blooming, it starts emitting the fragrance. And then, after some time, it emits a bad fragrance. Because there’s a constant chemical reaction that’s happening in the flower. It’s so important to capture the fragrance at the right moment, which is soon after it blooms, which is best in terms of yield and the smell.
Like several white flowers, jasmine is rich in dole. Ironically, in dole is found in feces too. In the case of feces, there’s too much in dole, so it produces an unpleasant smell. But in limited amounts, it creates an appealing aroma, as it does with jasmine.
When the jasmine has bloomed, load the flowers into four 5000 liter extractors. The flowers then soak in a solvent. Once the solvent absorbs the smell of the flowers, they remove all the liquid. They are left with this waxy, hard substance called concrete. It’s what uses to finally extract the oil. Then add alcohol into the concretes, and then the concrete is separated off the waxes. It’s filtered, and then we get the absolute.
Jasmine sambas is the most coveted of all jasmine flowers, hence the high price. At it’s peak, jasmine sambas flowers can cost 10 times more than other types of jasmine. And when it comes to the final price of the oil, the majority of it depends on the cost of the flower itself.
The cost of 1 kilo of concrete $2750 to $3000, and the absolute is almost a double, like $5000-plus per kilo of absolute. Before that, sambas was grown in India, but it was not really extracted. The company produces all of its fragrance blends.
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