Travel Photography Photos tagged as rose_water
On the edge of the great desert of Dasht-e-Kavir, in the heart of Iran, city of Kashan stands which is situated about 220 km south of Tehran, the capital of Iran. It is the place that my grand father comes from. Kashan Province is also famous for its rosewater (Rose-water called " Golab" in Farsi language) which is the product of Qamsar, Niyasar and Barzook, smaller towns of Kashan province, and the three main producers of rosewater for over 800 years. In spring, The Ceremony of Rosewater Distillation Ceremony, flower picking, and extraction of rosewater, starts when rose buds begin to open, usually mid May to early June. In this season, the whole town is filled with the aroma of roses and rosewater. The light pink color Mohmmadi rose used for this purpose is named after the Prophet Mohammad Peace Be Upon Him (pbuh), for its delightful fragrance. Each year is washing the Ka'ba of the world Muslims with the pure fragrant rose-water produced in Kashan. Distillation of rosewater is carried out immediately after picking and is performed with their own traditional huge copper pots which each one has a capacity of 120–150 liters. These copper pots works as a pressure cooker. Around 20 kg of rose petals is put into every pot that holds 80 liters of water, and the pots are closed airtight. Each pot is connected, airtight, with an aluminum tube to a pitcher. These pitchers are placed in a ditch of running cold water and are weighted with cast iron to keep them below the water, in a way that the top of each pitcher is about 20 cm above the water surface. Each pitcher can hold 30–40 liters of liquid. The process will take between 4-20 hours and the outcome is about 35 liters of rosewater. The slower the process of extraction, the better the quality of the rosewater. A fine rosewater is very fragrant and tastes a little bitter. Every year from, 17th to 30th of May, the festival of rose and rosewater is held in the towns of Qamsar, Niyasar and Barzook.