Each spring, thanks to irrigation techniques that date back to antiquity, the harsh, vertiginously terraced slopes of Jabal Akhdar, a lush and green peak in Oman’s Hajar Mountains, radiate pink. From April to mid-May, riotous fields of Rosa damascena, the damask rose, suffuse the air with their perfume, a sweet, delicate scent that the 20th-century Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani described as “the history of all fragrance.”
First cultivated in Iran and likely grown in the region since ancient times, the damask rose is named for the Syrian city of Damascus. According to Nicolas Roth, a horticultural historian and librarian at the Harvard Fine Arts Library, the variety that’s found in the mountains of Oman likely arrived in the eastern Arabian Peninsula in the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire ruled areas just to the west of Oman and promoted rose farming. Today, some 100 small-scale Omani farmers cultivate 5,000 rosebushes across 10 acres; here, high-altitude precipitation and cold air collide with desert heat, providing the plant with ideal conditions.
Throughout history, damask roses have been used for everything from medicine to food to fragrance. Through drying and distillation, the Jabal Akhdar roses yield petals, oil and the famed Omani rose water. During the harvest, farmers fill large sacks with blossoms early in the morning, before the day’s heat evaporates the dew. The flowers are then placed in traditional mud ovens, on top of which sit round copper kettles. As the rose petals heat, the steam rises and condenses in the copper chamber. The liquid is then filtered and stored in large clay vessels, allowing the fragrance of the rose water to intensify before being bottled. The process, which dates back more than a thousand years, laid an important foundation for the modern perfume industry.
Across the region, rose water is drizzled over meats, dripped into coffee and baked into pastries; at the end of a meal, it’s traditional for an Omani host to anoint the hands of guests with it. It’s also increasingly important economically. Known for its antibacterial and healing properties, rose water is a prized skin-care ingredient and is even said to help with depression and stress. And nothing goes to waste: After the distillation process, the spent rose petals are often incorporated into fertilizers to enrich the land for the next season.
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