THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS
ROSE POWDER
Rosa damascena / Bulgaria
50 rituals. approx. $1.36 per serving
Damask rose from the Bulgarian valley where it has grown for three hundred years, picked in the dark before the sun can take the scent out of it. Ground fine, it turns warm milk the palest pink and tastes the way an old garden smells.
Ships within 2 business days. Freshness guaranteed.
Rosa damascena, the damask rose.
Petals only, nothing else.
Origin: the Rose Valley, Bulgaria.
Every batch independently tested.
need to update
Whisk half a teaspoon into warm milk with a little honey, or fold into yogurt. It takes to cold water with lemon just as well. Start with less than you think you want, because rose is generous.
Keep it sealed and away from light. Rose loses its scent before it loses its color, so trust your nose rather than your eyes.
Rosa damascena, the damask rose.
Petals only, nothing else.
Origin: the Rose Valley, Bulgaria.
Every batch independently tested.
need to update
Whisk half a teaspoon into warm milk with a little honey, or fold into yogurt. It takes to cold water with lemon just as well. Start with less than you think you want, because rose is generous.
Keep it sealed and away from light. Rose loses its scent before it loses its color, so trust your nose rather than your eyes.
A DISTINCTION MOST PEOPLE MISS
FRESH OPENS, DRIED HOLDS
IN THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS
TWO DIFFERENT PLANTS
Gerard in 1597 and Culpeper in 1653 both insisted that a fresh damask petal and a dried red one behave nothing alike, and they wrote up each accordingly. It is exactly the kind of distinction that gets flattened when a plant becomes fashionable, and it is worth keeping hold of.
WHAT THE SCENT ACTUALLY IS
Citronellol and geraniol
Two monoterpene alcohols account for roughly half the essential oil, and they are at their most concentrated in the petal at dawn. The colour comes from anthocyanins and the grip on the tongue from tannins, which is why rose tastes faintly of tea as well as of perfume.
SAME FLOWER FOUND IN EVERY TRADITION
EVERYBODY'S FLOWER
No other plant has been claimed by so many kitchens temples, and perfumers at once.
PERSIA
Arq-e-Gulab
Rose water is credited to Ibn Sina in the tenth century, and Persian distilleries were soon turning out otto of roses for perfume and trade. Gulkand, a conserve of petals pounded with sugar and left to cure in the sun, is still made the same way. Rose is not an ingredient there so much as a fixture of the household.
INDIA
Shatapatri
The hundred-petalled, in Sanskrit. Rose survives in Indian kitchens as food far more than as medicine, stirred into lassi, folded into sweets, and eaten off the spoon straight from the gulkand jar. Ayurvedic tradition describes it as cooling and balancing to all three doshas.
GREECE & ROME
Sub Rosa
Pliny recorded around thirty-two rose preparations and Dioscorides was working with it in the first century. The Romans hung a rose above the table to mark a conversation as confidential, which is where sub rosa comes from, and each spring at the Rosalia they wreathed their dead in petals.
CHINA
A DIFFERENT ROSE
Chinese medicine works with mei gui hua, which is also a rose, but it is Rosa rugosa and not the damask rose in this jar. What is written about the one does not transfer to the other, and the two are run together constantly. We would rather tell you than let the confusion do the selling.
Rose is food in a great many kitchens, and two things are still worth saying plainly. It is traditionally avoided during pregnancy and while nursing, and European regulators note that its safety in either has not been established. Rose is also high in tannins, which can reduce how much iron a meal gives you, so if you are watching your iron it is better beside the plate than in it.
Begin the ritual
A GARDEN AT DUSK IN A GLASS OF WARM MILK
Fifty rituals and a jar that smells like the whole valley.