About Aromaserve
Aromaserve is located in the Orchard District of South Glastonbury, Connecticut among heirloom berry farms and fruit orchards. We are privileged to have as neighbors several blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry farms as well as apple, peach, pear, plum and cherry orchards all nestled atop the eastern slopes of the fertile Connecticut River Valley. 150 years ago, a "cider brandy" distillery produced the region's most popular beverage amidst this bounty. Aromaserve is proud to be part of this agriculturally historic setting and proud to work beside the families who pioneered this vital farming community generations ago. We share an appreciation for the land and the hard work that rewards itself with premium agricultural products produced and consumed locally.
Find out more in the links below:
What You Can Expect
It's all about Aroma and Service at Aromaserve. Using the time-honored, Old World process of Steam Distillation, Aromaserve will expertly produce 100% pure natural essential oil and hydrosol from your organically grown or wild-crafted herbs without the use of chemical solvents and without adulteration by petroleum-based synthetic fragrance chemicals. In addition to having certainty in your own growing conditions, you will also have confidence in the essential oil production process. These controls define the quality of your personalized aromatic raw materials that you use in your premium personal healthcare products.
With each batch distillation, you'll receive three natural products in return - pure essential oil, pure hydrosol (floral water), and sterile biomass (spent herb). Immediately you can see the power of your herbs working for you exponentially - a single harvest is processed into three natural product materials with seemingly endless entrepreneurial potential for craft-based profits. This is the service that Aromaserve offers to its herb-growing customers. All it takes is a touch of steam - pure water vapor at boiling temperature! No chemicals used and, of course, no adulteration. You grow it, you know it - it's intimately your essential oil.
The Aromaserve Edge
A record of traceability is linked to each batch distilled at Aromaserve. This record is in the form of a Certificate of Authenticity (CoA) presented at the end of the distillation. This certificate ensures the customer that essential oils and hydrosols produced by Aromaserve are entirely natural products and their production can be traced. Each distillation is assigned a unique batch number. The batch number is recorded on the CoA enabling future reference to Aromaserve's records. This is useful in demonstrating to your customers that the essential oils in your products are locally produced in Connecticut and 100% natural. The quantities of oil and hydrosol distilled are measured and recorded on the CoA. The quality of the oil is also defined and documented in terms of physical appearance, fragrance characteristics, density, and % yield by weight. Finished oil and hydrosol are provided in inert, light-protected glass containers with screw-cap closures, and the sterile biomass is returned in a plastic zip-lock bag.
The Aromaserve Value
Aromaserve offers herb growers and enthusiasts in New England the opportunity to participate in the distillation experience. Witness the operation of steam vapor acting as the sole instrument to gently lift pure concentrated herbal essence from your harvested material. See the condensed water & essential oil mixture separating into their pure liquid forms. At distillation's end, the collected oil is treated for storage (residual water is removed from the oil to retard oxidation). You'll receive three separate, all-natural products each having multiple (and valuable) uses. In addition to your personalized essential oil and its Certificate of Authenticity, you'll receive the aqueous portion of the distillate (hydrosol or floral water) and the spent herb biomass after it cools (it can be used as mulch, sterile media for growing edible mushrooms, or added to your compost pile). If you don't wish to spend a few hours at Aromaserve observing the process, your herb material may be dropped off or shipped to us for distillation. Your finished, all-natural products will be available for pick-up, free local delivery, or return shipment. It's all up to you because it's all about Aroma and Service at Aromaserve!
The CoA, physical testing, and containers are provided at no additional cost (included in the distillation service fee). The distillation service fee is determined on a case-by-case basis depending on the type of material to be distilled, the amount of pre- and post-batch handling required, and the total quantity of material to be distilled. Discounting for multiple batches may apply. Large-scale farm growers may take advantage of lower unit costs by contracting pilot batch sizes using Aromaserve's stainless steel retort, currently being constructed. Field testing this 2.5 cubic foot (19 gallon) capacity is scheduled for 2003 and farm-scale distilling services will be available thereafter. To minimize oil production costs on a unit basis, grow as much biomass as you can since dollar savings are realized from maximum-capacity distillations. See our Frequently Asked Questions or Contact Aromaserve to learn more about harvesting, handling, and how to schedule an appointment for a lavender or other herb oil distillation.
About Adulteration
Producing most non-tropical essential oils in New England is not limited by horticultural or environmental factors. However, commercial production can be cost-prohibitive due to economies of scale. That's why most essential oils available in the marketplace are produced in long-established growing regions around the world, sometimes in under-developed countries where specific aromatic plants flourish in the wild. Labor is inexpensive and the distillation infrastructure has been established for generations (for example, Vetiver in Haiti, Lavender in the Mediterranean area, Rose in Bulgaria, and Rose Geranium on Reunion Island off the Madagascar coast). Unfortunately, this illustrates the geographic separation that exists between old-world producers and new-world customers. This distancing factor allowed unscrupulous tampering practices to proliferate. Adulteration of essential oils with synthetic fragrance chemicals or cheaper substitute oils was widespread in attempts to stretch the quantity of oil sold and to increase profits. Some example adulterants are turpentine (added to various herb oils), lemongrass & citronella (added to batches of lemon balm herb prior to distilling), and water (added after distilling to increase the volume of a drum of oil to be sold by weight). The quality of adulterated essential oil is almost always poor. Historically, uncertainty in product quality has been a strong consideration in the marketplace when purchasing essential oils from suppliers or direct from distillers. At Aromaserve, the traceable quality of your locally distilled essential oil is never in doubt. The value of this knowledge in your essential oil's integrity is paramount - it's the Aromaserve Value.
Technical and Practical Considerations
Several herbs and other aromatic plants can be cultivated and distilled for their essential oils here in central Connecticut and throughout the region where growing conditions permit. Herbs with sufficient oil content (generally greater than 0.1%) should be set in full sun with southern exposure. For value-adding, plant enough individuals to ensure harvesting a quantity of leaves or flowers adequate to render an amount of essential oil sufficient to justify its cost. This is an example of the minimum economic scale to be considered if maximum profit from value-added product sales is desired. Consider the economic efficiency (cost-to-value) relationship; a grower may plan ahead to cultivate a large plot of a particular herb enabling the processing of more biomass per distillation batch which will yield more oil for the same cost, thus lowering the expense of production on a unit basis. Similarly, several growers may "team up" and combine harvests to maximize oil production from a single batch and share distilling costs. This is commonly practiced on the agronomic scale in England, for example, where chamomile growers coordinate their harvests to coincide with the availability of a mobile steam distilling unit that comes to their fields to distill. Field handling costs (labor) and oil production expenses are efficiently distributed among several growers in this type of co-operation.
Differences in cultivar, growing conditions, biomass density, and moisture content are some of the factors that will determine the oil quality and yield for a given herb. Aromaserve provides test distillation batches for growers considering scaling up to large production. The oil content (percent by weight) in the biomass determined from a test batch can be used to calculate the quantity of established plants needed to yield a desired amount of essential oil for manufacturing purposes. Test studies at Aromaserve (Zone 6, Connecticut) have shown that lavender, peppermint, apple mint, German chamomile, rose geranium, hops, anise hyssop, wintergreen, sweet marjoram, juniper, hemlock, and balsam fir can be successfully grown and distilled to produce oils with compositions and fragrances characteristic of commercially available essential oils. Other candidates currently under investigation at Aromaserve include rose (hydrosol, or rosewater only), lemon verbena, angelica, and rosemary. It is interesting to consider what other herbs and aromatic plants can be cultivated in New England for essential oil distillation, either in your herb garden, farm plot, or greenhouse.
Lavender - The Fragrant Future
A new essential oil industry is now flourishing on a smaller scale here in the US - a cottage industry devoted to growing and producing much beloved lavender flowers and Aromaserve's favorite essential oil. During the 1990s, due in part to the rising popularity of aromatherapy, lavender was discovered and recognized as a viable alternative commercial crop. Lavender is growing commercially in California, West Virginia, Cape Cod, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. Even in central New England, a southern Vermont herbalist has 42 lavender plants on her modest, wooded property. These local producers join the large plantations of hectares and hectares of lavender growing as far as the eye can see in Tasmania, England, France, and Spain. Together they supply the world with tons of lavender oil and the resulting specialty soaps, bath salts, body powders, lotions and balms, eau de colognes, shave creams, massage oils, air fresheners, cleaning solutions, sleep pillows, and other craft items made from it. To tour lavender farms around the world, large and small, click any of the links below.
http://www.jerseylavender.co.uk
http://www.lapaixherbaljourney.com
http://www.lavenderfarms.com
http://www.ornbaunlavender.com
http://www.lavenderland.com
http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/lavender/farm.html
http://www.lavenderhillfarm.com
http://www.watercolorlavenderfarm.com
http://www.lavendergreen.com/main.html
http://www.capecodlavenderfarm.com/index.html
http://www.purplehazelavender.com
http://www.lavenderfarm.com
http://www.lavandula.com.au
A Condensed History of Steam Distillation in America
A Minty-Fresh Tale
The industrial history of essential oil production in the United States is almost entirely related to spearmint & peppermint (steam distilled) and citrus peel (cold pressed) oils. Colonial farmers imported mint stolons to America from England in the 18th century, having originated in Eurasia during the civilization of the Old World. The first American mint fields were planted in Cheshire, Massachusetts during the 1790s. From there, its cultivation has moved west ever since - first to the Finger Lakes region of New York in the early 1800s as growers sought better soil, and then to the mucklands of Michigan after the Civil War when settlement in general moved west. By 1900, 90% of the world's steam-distilled mint oil came from the region around Kalamazoo. In the 1890s, growers in Michigan and Indiana supplied the Wrigley chewing gum factory with spearmint and peppermint oils distilled for their trademark gums (Wrigley's Spearmint Gum was released in 1893 and Doublemint Gum, a blend of spearmint and peppermint oils, came along in 1914). The US mint industry declined in the Midwest throughout the 1950s due to the appearance of verticillium wilt disease. During the 1970s the growing and distilling industry was all but beaten by the wilt and it moved again to the northwestern states of Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon where it is threatened today by cheaper mint oils from China.
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Disclaimer: Some essential oils are harmful if taken internally or applied directly to the skin in pure, concentrated form. Do not consume pure essential oils internally and do not use essential oils without diluting them first in a carrier oil. Seek the advice of a physician or a healthcare practitioner professionally trained in the safe use of essential oils before using. Avoid essential oils during pregnancy and keep essential oils away from children and pets. It is the customer's responsibility to understand and accept all risks associated with the use of essential oils. Aromaserve accepts no liability related to illness or injury resulting from the misuse of essential oils based on information contained in this website or from services provided as described herein.