ARTISANAL PRODUCTION Floral water is obtained by the same process as essential oils, i.e. by steam distillation. The water vapour passes through the plants. On leaving the container, this water vapour, enriched with the essential oils contained in the plants, is condensed in a cold tube. The liquid that is collected contains traces of essential oil and water.
In mid-July, when the harvesting season begins, before the buds of many plants have even bloomed, the tractors automatically harvest the fields, and the harvesters on foot, with their huge wicker baskets of yesteryear and armed with their sickles, walk through the flower fields under an intense and unbearable summer sun, picking by hand all those herbs and flowers that are inaccessible to tractors.
Then, once the harvesting of the most precious and aromatic riches of the fields of the South of France is finished, the drying of the flowers begins. Drying takes about two to three days and, once this process is complete, the dried plants are transported to the distilleries. Distillation of the plants at low temperature follows the traditional process. The plants are transported to large containers where they are pressed hard to provide maximum resistance to water vapour in order to extract as much essential oil as possible. After pressing, the kettles are brought to boiling point and the water vapour is enriched with the aromatic essential oils.
The handcrafting process is a lengthy and labour-intensive process. It normally takes about half an hour to distil a tonne of flowers and produces between 5 and 10 kilos of essence from these flowers.
