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Rose water or rosewater is a flavoured water created by steepingrose petals in water.[1] It is typically made as a by-product during the distillation of rose petals to create rose oil for perfumes. Rose water is widely utilized to flavour culinary dishes and enhance cosmetic products, and it is significant in religious rituals throughout Eurasia. Iran is a major producer, supplying around 90% of the world's rose water demand.[2]
Central Iran is home to the annual Golabgiri festival each spring. Thousands of tourists visit the area to celebrate the rose harvest for the production of rosewater.[3][4]
History
12th-century rosewater bottle from Iran (silver with gold and niello, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)
Since ancient times, roses have been used medicinally, nutritionally, and as a source of perfume.[3] 11th-century writings by Ibn Jazla state that rose water strengthened the gums and stomach as well as being an antiemetic.[5]
Geographer Al-Dimashqi wrote that his native Damascus exported rose water to much of the Arab world. Some sources state that it was exported from cities in modern-day Turkey and Syria to the Indian subcontinent and even China.[5]
Rose perfumes are made from rose oil, also called "attar of roses", which is a mixture of volatileessential oils obtained by steam-distilling the crushed petals of roses. Rose water is a by-product of this process.[6] Before the development of the technique of distilling rose water, rose petals were already used in Persian cuisine to perfume and flavour dishes.[7] Rose water likely originated in Persia,[8][9] where it is known as gulāb (گلاب), from gul (گل rose) and ab (آب water). The term was adopted into Medieval Greek as zoulápin.[10]
In Southeast Asia, rose water is the basis for a sweet, red-tinted cordial sometimes enhanced with screwpine (pandan) and/or spices called sirap mawar or sirap ros. This concoction is often diluted to be served on its own (as air sirap), mixed with calamansi (as air sirap limau), or mixed with milk to produce a pink beverage called air bandung.[15]
↑Adamson, Melitta Weiss (2004). Food in Medieval Times. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.29. ISBN978-0-313-32147-4. Rose petals were already used in Persian cookery to perfume and flavor dishes long before the technique of distilling rose water was developed. The person commonly credited with the discovery of rose water was the tenth-century Persian physician Avicenna.
↑Marks, Gil (2010). Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. HMH. p.791. ISBN978-0-544-18631-6. About two centuries later, the Bukharan-born physician ibn Sina (980–1037), whose name was latinized as Avicenna, discovered how to use the still to extract the essential oil from flower petals. This allowed for the steam distillation of floral waters, particularly rose water
↑Boskabady, Mohammad Hossein; Shafei, Mohammad Naser; Saberi, Zahra; Amini, Somayeh (2011). "Pharmacological Effects of Rosa Damascena". Iranian Journal of Basic Medical Sciences. 14 (4): 295–307. ISSN2008-3866. PMC3586833. PMID23493250. The origin of Damask rose is the Middle East and some evidences indicate that the origin of rose water is Iran
