Myrrh Somalia

Resinoid

Commiphora myrrha resin

F&F

General data

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Product details

Our added value

Collaboration with a local partner through a multi-year contract agreement engaging both parts on quantity and quality and ensuring fair price for the collectors.
Training in good harvesting practices provided to collectors by our partner.
Betterment of local community livelihood.

The Somalian government established the good harvesting practices to secure the durability of the resource by the yearly evaluation to supervise the frequency of tapping, the number of slits and the rotation of the trees being tapped.
No pesticides are used on the trees, the gum is certified organic.

The transformation process is carried out in our facilities in Spain.
We implement harvest to export control plans, to ensure legality of wild at-risk raw material.

Myrrh brings back the familiar scents of long walks in the forest in the fall. It develops facets of fresh mushroom slowly evolving into a more woody and mossy aspect. We also find a spicy note of saffron with a slight metallic side, completed by small touches of licorice.

Compared to the essential oil, the resinoid is softer but quite identical. It concentrates some caramelized and heavy notes while the essential oil has a beautiful trail that we can easily imagine in a cologne or with a rose.

Commiphora myrrha is a robust shrub that grows in the arid and desert regions of northern and eastern Africa, being found mainly in Somalia. The branches are covered with long thorns and, in the rainy season, large, bottlegreen leaves.
According to Greek mythology, this resin was named for Myrrha, the daughter of the King of Cyprus. Enamored of her own father, but ashamed of this love, the young woman begged the gods to banish her from the world of the living and the dead. The gods thus turned her into a myrrh tree; the gumresin the plant exudes is said to be her tears.

In Somalia, tapping takes place during the dry season, the trees’ vegetative period, when they no longer have leaves. Once the tree is incised, the collectors allow the tree to exude its resin for 10 to 15 days, coming to harvest it two to three weeks later. The trees are then recut for another exudation.
Once harvested, the gums are manually sorted by size and color and left to dry for 12 weeks.

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