My husband bought me a beautiful rose yesterday and being the fragile flower that they are I quickly snapped a few shots to preserve it. It’s holding up well now it’s inside out of the heat and it smells amazing – shame I can’t post the smell here either – maybe one day.
I was so pleased how the photo turned out. I only had my iPhone 4S with me but it did a great job – or maybe it was the photographer 🙂
Rose perfumes are made from attar of roses or rose oil, which is a mixture of volatile essential oils obtained by steam distilling the crushed petals of roses. An associated product is rose water which is used for cooking, cosmetics, medicine and in religious practices.
The production technique originated in Persia then spread through Arabia and India, and more recently into eastern Europe. In Bulgaria, Iran and Germany, damask roses (Rosa × damascena‘Trigintipetala’) are used. In other parts of the world Rosa × centifolia is commonly used. The oil is transparent pale yellow or yellow-grey in colour.
‘Rose Absolute’ is solvent-extracted with hexane and produces a darker oil, dark yellow to orange in colour. The weight of oil extracted is about one three-thousandth to one six-thousandth of the weight of the flowers; for example, about two thousand flowers are required to produce one gram of oil.
Rose water has a very distinctive flavor and is used heavily in Persian and Middle Eastern cuisine—especially in sweets such as nougat, gumdrops, raahat and baklava.
Rose petals or flower buds are sometimes used to flavor ordinary tea, or combined with other herbs to make herbal teas.
In France there is much use of rose syrup, most commonly made from an extract of rose petals. In the United States, this French rose syrup is used to make rose scones and marshmallows. In the Indian subcontinent Rooh Afza, a concentrated squash made with roses, is popular, as well as rose-flavored ice cream and kulfi.
Rose flowers are used as food, also usually as flavoring or to add their scent to food. Other minor uses include candied rose petals.
Rose creams (rose flavored fondant covered in chocolate, often topped with a crystallised rose petal) are a traditional English confectionery widely available from numerous producers in the UK.
