Following the Scent of Egypt’s Jasmine

14.11.2024 - 14:13 / nytimes.com

In the middle of the Nile Delta, about 50 miles north of Cairo, the small town of Shubra Bilulah is encircled by roughly 300 acres of flower farms. The majority of them are growing Jasminum grandiflorum, a lacy vine with delicate white flowers that typically bloom between June and December and yield 90 percent of the country’s jasmine crop: roughly 2,500 tons of blossoms a year. The flowers are handpicked at dawn and then placed in solvent-filled extraction tanks where the liquid is distilled, steamed and cooled overnight before re-emerging as a waxlike paste that’s then shipped to perfumeries around the world.

There are some 200 species of jasmine, five of which are commonly grown in Egypt. The plant isn’t native to the country but was introduced to it several times. Legend has it that jasmine first arrived between 1300 and 1200 B.C. by way of traders from Mesopotamia (which encompassed much of current-day Iraq, as well as southeastern Turkey and eastern Syria). By the ninth century A.D., the flowers appeared frequently in Arabic poetry and literature. In the 19th century, the ruler Khedive Ismail (1863-79) commissioned Parisian-inspired botanical gardens in Cairo, with jasmine figuring in their design.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that the country’s first commercial extraction facility was built; by the ’60s, jasmine production had become Shubra Bilulah’s primary industry. Most of the town’s roughly 20,000 residents still rely on the plant for their livelihood — a prospect that for some has grown more difficult with Egypt’s recent high inflation. (A BBC report earlier this year raised concerns about child labor on the farms around Shubra Bilulah where jasmine is picked.) Still, locals say that farming, as it is in many agricultural communities throughout the world, is as much a tradition as it is a source of income. Today, Egyptian jasmine accounts for about half of the jasmine extract used by the global fragrance industry.

Beyond these fields, where Jasminum grandiflorum dominates, is the equally aromatic Jasminum sambac, or Arabian jasmine, known locally as . Like all jasmine, it’s said to symbolize love, beauty and purity. Come late spring, when the buds begin to bloom, the plant’s flowers are strung and sold on street corners, at traffic lights and along Nile-side promenades. The necklaces are given to children by their parents, draped on cars’ rearview mirrors and exchanged by lovers on evening strolls.