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Have just read your August Newsletter. We’re growing and distilling lavender. How can we increase extraction rates and decrease distillation time? A well-timed question!
Although the weather’s
cooler, the heat’s still on in the office because several of the front line are on holiday, which leaves me answering all the queries. Still, I did manage to escape for a couple of days whilst Tim and Joan Denny were
staying with us. In their mid-80s, they are a truly remarkable couple and I always look forward very much to their visits from Australia.
Tim was just the chap to answer this question, because he was formerly in
charge of research and development for the Bridestowe Estate, lavender growers and distillers in Tasmania from 1947 to 1973, and General Manager from 1973-89. In the course of developing the lavender oil industry in
Tasmania, to the point where the farm was producing 3½ % of the total world output of lavender oil, it became vital for Tim to improve the efficiency and economy of the distillery.
The orthodox theory of steam
distillation for essential oils was set out by von Rechenberg in 1910, and was used in all the recognized textbooks before 1987. It made the basic assumption that, because all volatile liquids automatically form saturated
vapours in immediate contact with their exposed surfaces, any oil that was exposed on herb surfaces inside a still must automatically vaporize to saturate the steam.
However, Tim’s investigations revealed that the commonly accepted theory defied the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Heat can be transferred from a cooler to a hotter body by any self-sustaining continuous process.
So, if heat is to be transferred from substance A to substance B, then A must be at a higher temperature than B. This is one of the most fundamental laws of the entire universe, yet it is surprising how easily it can be overlooked.
For example, earlier theories of this distillation process assumed that, because there was so much heat in the still, some of the heat from the general vapour space would spread to vaporize the oil that was at the same
temperature on the herb surface. Of course, in those conditions, if the vapour surrendered any heat at all, it must immediately become cooler than the oil, and then the theory defies this basic law.
In due
course, this revelation led to alternative explanations for the phenomena which had appeared to support von Rechenberg’s theory.
In fact, the oil’s evaporation is far from being automatic. It is totally dependent on the transference of latent heat from the steam to the oil. Formerly, there was no precise method of calculating a distillery’s daily throughput of herb. But, using the Denny formulae, this can now be done within a margin of error not exceeding 3%.
This new understanding of the process reduced the total distillation time required to extract the oil from each 300 kilo load of lavender flowers from 2¼ hours to 32 minutes.
It increased the yield of oil per tonne of flowers by 20% while improving the quality to the point where few, if any, could match the standard of Tasmanian lavender oil.
Subsequently, Tim was urged by industry leaders
to write Field Distillation for Herbaceous Oils and was awarded the International Federation of Essential Oils and Aroma Trades medal for his work on essential oils. Although the book is not that cheap at £56, I would
urge any who wish to take up distillation seriously to get a copy first.
However, what impresses me the most is that the great Ernest Guenther, author of the six volumes classic text The Essential Oils, when confronted
with Tim’s research, conceded that his own volume on distillation was not too good and preferred to debate with Joan’s sister the best way to mash potatoes!
Meanwhile I am not coping well with these automated petrol
pumps, into which you stuff your debit/credit card, or cash, in the hope that they will dispense some fuel. Fortunately I must look sufficiently old to warrant assistance from young sales attendants, who patiently
retrieve my card, or cash, from these infernal machines and politely fill my tank. Still, what if the garage is on night duty and there is not an attendant in sight?
The other day, Mudlark of the Financial Times, whilst
in Switzerland, put a SFr10 note in an automatic, unstaffed petrol pump in the hamlet of Hundwil in Appenzell Ausserrhoden canton. No petrol was dispensed, only a receipt for the transaction.
A message in ad hoc
German was left on the doorstep of the owner’s house. Four days later, in spite of the intervening weekend and Swiss holiday, Sfr10 arrived by post chez Mudlark in London. Would this happen in Chipping Norton, I wonder?!
Out of sync?
It is usually between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning that I am aroused from my slumber by the departure of Mung and Mick to investigate what is going on in the kitchen.
It might be a simple pot-noodle, a saucepan of crackling popcorn, a choice Chinese, or perhaps an Indian curry. Whatever, it is Justin’s customary time to eat.
Perhaps this habit is a relic of his student days,
or maybe it fits in better with his television viewing schedule, but giving up this midnight snack may be difficult, and not just because it is part of his routine. The habit may have genetically changed an area of his brain to
expect food at that time, researchers have discovered.
By training mice to eat when they typically would not, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center found that food turned on body-clock genes in a particular area
of the brain. Even when the food stopped coming, the genes continued to activate at the expected mealtime.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may provide clues to how
metabolic conditions in an animal can synchronize themselves with
a body clock.
How many others fancy a midnight snack?
Does your profession affect your health?
According to a report by the Health and Safety
Executive (HSE), it may. For the period 2004-2005, some 2 million workers suffered from ill health, which they believe was caused or made worse by work.
Its findings were equivalent to “28 million working days lost to the British economy every year”. A sobering statistic.
Musculoskeletal disorders were the biggest cause of work-related ill health, with about 1m people
suffering MSDs that they believed had been caused or made worse by work. Another 500,000 claimed to be suffering from work-related stress, the next biggest category. I would have thought these areas where
aromatherapy could significantly assist.
Professions suffering above-average rates for work-related illness included health and social welfare, teaching and research professionals and skilled construction and building
trades. Do employers in these sectors ever consider the use of aromatherapy in their battle to reduce the number of working days lost? If not, why not? Surely, it could be a cheap remedy.
Therapeutic grade?
Some years ago, in an endeavour to ginger up their appeal, I labelled our essential oils as ‘aromatherapy grade’, but quickly dropped the epithet because I thought it meaningless.
In the current edition of the
erudite International Journal of Aromatherapy (IJA) its editor, Bob Harris, addresses another marketing description that is currently in vogue - ‘therapeutic grade’.
To subscribe to the IJA, go to the website
(http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/ijar). The journal exists for the benefit of all who have an interest in aromatherapy, the use of natural, aromatic plant oils in the pursuit of health and well being, whether mental,
emotional, physical or aesthetic. I wouldn’t be without my quarterly copy.
I would agree with Bob that there is no accepted definition of ‘therapeutic grade’ essential oil as far as I know, although organic
cultivation is sometimes associated with this term. Surely, as he points out, an essential oil can be very therapeutic and yet not be organic or fall within any accepted international standard.
If asked for a definition
of a ‘therapeutic grade’ oil, Bob would say that it had to be a pure essential oil, preferably but not necessarily organically cultivated, that was supplied with a full chemical analysis of its constituents.
I could
not agree more because, as he states, knowledge of the chemical composition of an oil is paramount in terms of therapeutic efficacy as related to pharmacological activity.
Therefore, why do not more request analyses?
After all we do them as a matter of course, and they’re free on request. Is it that many may consider them meaningless mumbo-jumbo when, in relation to the psychotherapeutic effects of fragrance, the perceived fragrance is important, irrespective of the components that generate the effect?
Still, when all is said and done, I believe that there’s more to aromatherapy and aromatic oils than grades and analyses.
Gabriel Mojay put it rather well in his authoritative and unique approach to this popular subject, Aromatherapy for Healing the Spirit.
Subtle and immaterial in nature, it is only possible to apprehend the vital force
of an oil through an appreciation of the details of its individual make-up - its botanical structure
and habitat, chemistry and aroma, history and tradition, and its properties and uses. Only
a close and careful
observation of the oil’s persona will allow us to perceive its inner character.
Looking back at Cinnamon.
The story of cinnamon reaches back into antiquity.
Flotillas of sturdy vessels, their sails bulging in the steady monsoon winds, winged their way across the Indian Ocean’s blue billows and along Arabia’s barren shores toward Egypt where the precious spice could be conveyed to sharp-faced dealers from Phoenicia who supplied the Greek and Roman trade. Or the spice was carried on camel across Mesopotamia’s timeless caravan trails, now buried in sand and forgotten, from the Persian Gulf to Babylon, and finally to Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean.
In their quest for spices, early Portuguese explorers rounded the Cape of Good Hope and, conquering Ceylon (a former name of Sri Lanka), forced the Singhalese kings to pay tribute in the form of cinnamon bark collected
from wild-growing trees. About 1770, during their rule over the island, the Dutch started to plant cinnamon and established a strict control over the spice by regulating production and destroying any surplus in order to
keep prices high. Taking advantage of Holland’s embroilment in the Napoleonic wars, England took over Ceylon in 1796, and its cinnamon industry became a monopoly of the East India Company which lasted until 1833.
The
generic name is derived from the Arabic or Persian mama via the Greek amomum meaning spice, and the prefix chini to its believed origin. Cinnamon is commonly known as kurundu in Sri Lanka, dalchini and ilayangam in India,
in Sanskrit tamalpatra, in Dutch caneel, in Spanish and Portuguese canela, and commercially as true cinnamon to distinguish Cinnamomum verum Presl. (syn. C. zeylanicum Breyn; Laurus cinnamomum L.) and its products from those
derived from other Cinnamomum species.
Cinnamomum verum is a bushy, evergreen tree which grows to 15 metres in height with numerous branches, long, leathery, bright green leaves, small yellow flowers and ovoid blackish
fruits. The bark and leaves are strongly aromatic. However, there is considerable physical variation within the species, indeed between individual trees, and distinct local strains exist.
In Sri Lanka, for example, six
named types are differentiated by the taste and aroma of their leaves, although chemical classification would be a more accurate method of differentiation.
Some differences are probably due to local environment as soil and climate have a significant effect on tree growth, type of bark and oils produced.
That three quite distinct essential oils (bark, leaf and root)
are obtained from one tree is of particular interest, and the method of biosynthesis which can generate or store eugenol in leaves, cinnamaldehyde in stem bark, and camphor in root bark is remarkable; light may be a major
factor.
Bark oil is a pale to dark yellow oily liquid with a strong, warm, sweet, spicy, tenacious odour.
Lower-grade oils are usually darker and lack the powerful odour and tenacity. The major chemical constituent is cinnamaldehyde, to 60%, but other components impart the characteristic odour and flavour distinguishing this oil from other Cinnamomum bark oils.
Leaf oil is yellow to brownish-yellow, with a warm, spicy, somewhat harsh odour, lacking the richness of bark oil. The major component is eugenol, to 80%, but Madagascar oil can be even higher.
Root-bark
oil is colourless to pale yellowish brown, similar in odour to stem bark oil but weaker, lacking in fragrance, and camphoraceous. The major component is camphor, to 60%.
As well as being one of the world’s most
important spices, cinnamon is an ancient herbal medicine, first written about in the Jewish religious text, the Torah.
It has a long history of use in India, and was first used medicinally in Egypt and parts of Europe from about 500 BC. The English historian the Venerable Bede (673-735) said of cassia and cinnamon that they were ‘very effective for curing disorders of the guts’.
It seems a safe assumption that the medical use of spices was the single most important reason for the survival of the long-distance luxury trade through the dark years of the early Middle Ages.
Which is to say that the survival of Europe’s contacts with the wider world owed much to its demand for spicy drugs [ Jack Turner (2004). Spice: The history of a Temptation. ISBN; 0-00-655173-4].
Cinnamon is reported
antispasmodic, carminative, orexigenic, antidiarrhoeal, antimicrobial, refrigerant, and anthelmintic, and has been used to treat anorexia, intestinal colic, infantile diarrhoea, common cold, influenza, and specifically
flatulent colic and dyspepsia with nausea. The reputed antimicrobial, antiseptic, anthelmintic, carminative, and antispasmodic properties are probably attributable to the essential oil.
However, it is very important to
distinguish between the oils as the oil from the bark is a very strong skin irritant and should never be used on the skin. The leaf oil is an irritant as well, but not as strong, and can be used on the skin with caution, i.e.
well diluted. If you are offered a Cinnamon oil that is not labelled with the part of the tree from which it is obtained, don’t buy it!
Although very helpful for menstrual cramps, used in a hot compress, and when
the periods are scanty and painful, it is an emmenagogue and so should never be used during pregnancy.
Very warming, cinnamon is useful in massage blends for poor circulation, muscular aches and joint
pain. It is helpful during convalescence after any illness, and Jean Valnet, a highly decorated military medical officer who wrote The Practice of Aromatherapy, recommended giving cinnamon to elderly people routinely
during the winter to strengthen them and assist them resist seasonal infections.
Of course, the oil must not be taken internally, and care must be taken when using it on the skin of elderly people if they are frail. Use it as a minor part in a blend of oils, with the cinnamon making up not more than half of one percent of the whole. Allternatively, you might encourage the use of the spice in food, or look out for a spicy herbal tea that has cinnamon as an ingredient. Speaking of which.....
In the 1660s, the great Thomas Sydenham, once hailed as the ‘Shakespeare of medicine’, claimed to have found a wonder drug.
His laudanum, he boasted, was an unrivalled ‘cordial’! Made from a pint of sherry or Canary wine, its chief ingredients were saffron, cinnamon and cloves, boosted with a generous shot of opium. For a long time Sydenham’s laudanum was immensely popular with his fellow physicians. The spiced opiate was regularly prescribed for restless children, nervous orators, light sleepers, pregnant women, a string of prime ministers and their wives, poets and artists. It helped them to sleep, brought relief from pain and made them feel terrific. I bet!
Like opium, spices had a future after Sydenham’s day, but not for the most part as medicines. Only recently, when spices have come to attract increasing scientific attention, has it once more become possible to justify
their use in medical terms, although modern discoveries seldom correlate with claims made historically on their behalf. No longer is it credible to claim cinnamon as a panacea!
I can’t believe it!
Whilst
browsing through the Sunday papers, my eye was caught by Retro barbershop kitsch is booming. Whatever that means!
According to Tony Marcus of the Men’s Style section of the Sunday Times, shaving is the closest most men
get to a daily beauty ritual. Beauty ritual! I have never thought of shaving quite like that. Mind you, perhaps my approach to this daily chore is incorrect?
When it comes to how you actually shave, most barbers
suggest you first soften the skin with a hot shower or flannel, which I do, apply a slick of shaving oil (Ren Tamanu High Glide Shaving Oil is recommended), which I don’t, then do the fandango with a brush and cream (Korres
Absinthe Brushless Shave Cream is suggested), which I do, but using soap tainted with Essence of Caribbean Limes by Geo. Trumper instead.
However, after this palaver, I am assured by Mr. Marcus that I am ready to face the day, primed and pristine, a god among men! Surely he must be joking.
It seems that the master barbers of London are cashing in on my
time-honoured, daily ritual. Despite its demands on their leisure time, gentleman are attending the establishments of such as Flittner, Trumper, Taylor, and Truefitt & Hill for a traditional shave.
The hot towel and straight razor routine apparently recalls the days of Wodehouse and Waugh.
Certainly, from now on, I shall view myself in the shaving mirror in a different light!
Pepper of another colour.
Determined to keep me on my toes, Peter Wilde sent me some splendid Baies Roses to analyse the other day.
I must admit that his use of the French name for pink peppercorns, instead of the more familiar name of Schinus Molle, makes this essential oil seem quite
exotic! Surprisingly, I don’t believe that we have ever stocked it.
This oil is an example of an essential oil which came into the limelight more because of the shortage of another oil, Black Pepper (Piper nigrum
L.), rather than any interest in Schinus Molle itself. When the Second World War brought about a shortage of black pepper from the Malaysian Archipelago, attempts were made in the United States to substitute the oil
derived from Schinus Molle for the true oil.
Schinus molle L. (fam. Anacardiaceae), the so-called California Pepper Tree, is an evergreen, up to 6 metres in height, and native to the American tropics, where it grows
wild. Because of its graceful hanging branches, feathery foliage, and yellow fragrant flowers, it is cultivated as an ornamental garden tree in many warmer parts of the world. Peter’s oil is extracted from berries
from Ethiopia, where the tree may have actually originated, or close by, as I can find no record of its ever having been introduced there.
The berries are aromatic and possess a sweetish, spicy and sharp pepper-like
flavour, not unlike Elemi (Canarium luzonicum (Blume) A. Gray).
In Central America and Greece, I understand that the berries are used in the production of intoxicating drinks, and are often employed as a substitute for real pepper. The berries, as well as the leaves, contain a volatile oil which can be extracted by steam distillation.
The oil is a pale green or pale olive coloured, oily liquid whose odour is fresh, peppery and spicy. The peppery note is undoubtedly due to the presence of large amounts of phellandrene. Peter’s oil contains 37.56%
a-phellandrene and 15.26% b-phellandrene, together with 13.8% b-myrcene and 9.98% limonene as other major constituents.
Although I could find little evidence of traditional use, because it is probably just
“pepper” to many, it appears antiseptic, antiviral, bactericidal, carminative, and stomachic.
Aromatherapy uses for which it is suggested, however, include the treatment of chilblains, anaemia, arthritis, muscular aches and pains, neuralgia, poor circulation, poor muscle tone, and rheumatic pain. It is also probably worth trying for catarrh, chills, colds, flu, infections, and viruses. It seems a pretty safe oil, too.
Wonder weed?
I am interested in whether you can source Sisymbre Oil, which I purchased whilst on holiday in France on the recommendation of my daughter-in-law who is living there, asked Yvonne Vaughan. She has
started using it recently to keep away the wrinkles. It was used by the Greeks and Romans for their complexions.
Although I know that I can obtain it on the internet, I wondered if you have any knowledge of it. It seems good for adult acne, too.
True enough, a quick surf revealed that Sisymbre Oil was indeed
being offered by several French suppliers but, without a binomial, I was unsure about the botanical source of this magical potion. Could it be rocket?
London rocket (Sisymbrium irio L.) shot up profusely and
mysteriously from the ruins of east London in the spring following the Great Fire of 1666. It was a source of wonder and speculation at the time, not because of its appearance, as it is an ordinary enough mustard looking
plant, a foot or two tall with small yellow flowers, but because of the vast quantities that sprang from the piles of rubble and burned-out timber houses.
One contemporary writer concluded that ‘these hot bitter plants with four petals and pods were produced spontaneously without seed by the ashes of the fire mixed with salt and lime’.
Incidentally, the name ‘rocket’,
from the Latin eruca, is simply a generic name applied to many hot-tasting species.
Of course, there must have been seeds.
London rocket is not a British native, but a common annual of waste places in the Mediterranean, and stowaway specimens already established in London’s commercial quarters were the most likely origin. The great swathes of warm, disturbed ground left after the Fire would have created ideal conditions for the population explosion [Fitter, R.S.R., London’s Natural History, 1945].
The numbers dwindled over the years, and the species was probably extinct in London by the nineteenth century. Then a colony was discovered at the Tower of London in 1945. There were other reported sightings
from bombed areas during and after the Second World War, but most turned out to be the similar, but taller Eastern Rocket (Sisymbrium orientale L.). This was one of the most abundant and distinctive plants of the remnant
wasteland in the City of London when I worked there in the 1960s, especially around building and development sites, suffusing whole areas with yellow in late summer.
Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium officinale (L.) Scop.) is a
common annual or biennial of hedgerows, arable fields and wasteland, where it is a common weed with a peculiar aptitude for collecting and retaining dust. The blackish-green stalks, slender but tough, are branched and
rough, the leaves hairy, deeply-lobed, with their points turned backwards, the terminal lobe larger, which has given rise to the modern vernacular name of ‘barbed-wire plant’. In Australia, where it is also naturalized,
it is known as ‘Wiry Jack’. The leaves have been used as a green vegetable.
The yellow flowers are small and insignificant, placed at the top of the branches in long spikes, flowering by degrees throughout
July. The pods are downy, close pressed to the stem and contain yellow, acrid seeds.
This plant was named by the French the ‘Singer’s Plant’, it having been considered up to the time of Louis XIV an infallible
remedy for loss of voice. A strong infusion of the whole plant used to be taken in former days for all diseases of the throat. It was also considered to be antiscorbutic (i.e. preventing or curing scurvy).
Could this plant be the source of Yvonne’s ‘Sisymbre Oil’. I emailed her to enquire whether it was a fixed or volatile oil.
It’s a vegetable oil, quite thick and greeny brown in colour, easily absorbed, and has a very
distinctive nutty and woody smell.
In which case, I would surmise that the oil is extracted from the seeds of Sisymbrium species, but I am still not sure which. Nevertheless, having reviewed the fatty
acid profiles of several Sisymbrium oils, I would conclude that ‘Sisymbre Oil’ may indeed assist, but I doubt it any better than several other oils, until someone tells me differently!
Finally......A rare opportunity for
the work-pressed therapist to get everything done in just a weekend, and under one roof too!
We’ve still got a few places left for our Open Day, on Sunday, 24th September but, if that is not convenient, why not join Jan
at the 5th IFPA International Conference and Trade Exhibition at Warwick University the previous weekend, 16th-17th September. It promises to be a memorable event, with many of the profession’s leading luminaries speaking
on their specialist subjects.
Also, there will be a range of stimulating and instructive workshops and, for the first time ever, the Trade Exhibition Hall has been extended to accommodate a large range of products, services and equipment. You can attend on a one day or both day basis, and are awarded 12 hours of CPD for the entire weekend attendance. For the first time they are throwing open their doors to all, so you can bring along colleagues and friends to share this special occasion as well, but you better be quick. Since places are limited, book your place(s) by telephoning the IFPA office now on 01455 637987.