Cumin Essential oil Egypt

Cumin, Cuminum cyminum, or caraway   is a small annual herb belonging to the carrot family. Cumin’s dark-green leaves are delicate and finely cut into feathery forms. The small white flowers arranged in umbels produce the elongated, ridged, aromatic seeds. Seeds are harvested before full maturity, when they begin to develop a yellow tint. It takes forty days for the seedlings to mature. At harvest time, the plants are reaped and dried; the fruits are then harvested by winnowing. The essential oil, distilled from the crushed seeds, has an intensely fresh and spicy aromatic fragrance.

Most likely native to the Nile Valley, cumin is the major spice of the Mediterranean basin. Known since antiquity as a flavoring, it was used in the sarcophagi of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. In the Middle Ages, it served as a currency used by slaves in exchange for freedom. Long naturalized in North Africa, it is now grown from Morocco to Egypt and Syria to Spain. Travelling the Spice Route in the opposite direction (from the Mediterranean basin to Asia), cumin invaded farms of the Middle and Far East and thus found a firm place in Iran, China, and especially India as a main ingredient in “Indian curry.”

Advised uses : Aromatherapy, Perfumery, Cosmetic, Alimentary