Bulgarian Empire

Chapter 56: God's Garden

In Bulgaria in June, the roses have blossomed into smiles. The flowers resemble a small wine glass, and the petals bloom in a slight spiral.

It looked beautiful! Gently approach it, inhale deeply, and a light fragrance comes to your nose!

"Worthy of being God's Garden!" Looking at the roses blooming all over the mountain, Ferdinand exclaimed!

In a flash of insight, "Roses - rose oil, rose tea, rose tea!" Ferdinand suddenly laughed out loud.

"Sitting on a mountain of treasure and not knowing it!"

Roses belong to the Rosoideae subfamily of Rosaceae, which are a genus of thorny branches and shrubs. The leaves are odd-pinnate, with 5-9 leaflets, elliptical, with marginal spines and a wrinkled surface, and the thorns of the thallus are mostly united with the petiole. The flowers are solitary in clusters of several, purplish-red, pink, yellow, white, and fragrant.

Roses are both beautiful and fragrant. They are also a good raw material for tea and aromatic oil extraction on top of their ornamental value.

Rose tea is a mixture of fresh rose flowers and tea leaves in the ratio of bud ends. Its aroma has the difference between strong and light and not fierce.

Rose is also a valuable medicinal herb, beauty, and skincare, meridians, softens blood vessels, cardiovascular, hypertension, and heart disease significantly affecting women.

It helps to improve blood circulation, warm the stomach, nourish the liver, prevent constipation, reduce fever, astringency, and adjust menstruation. And is especially suitable for women with endocrine disorders and back pain.

In a previous life, Bulgaria was the world's largest exporter of rose oil. Rose oil is the main raw material for the production of high-end perfumes. It has always been in short supply and has the reputation of "liquid gold".

Until the 19th century, the production of rose oil in the Bulgarian Rose Valley was carried out in the form of family businesses.

Bulgarian rose oil has been produced for more than two hundred years without any technical difficulties.

As early as the 16th century, the Bulgarians began to use roses to extract rose water, and in 1680 began to produce rose oil.

From the middle of the 18th century, Bulgarian Rose oil was exported to Europe either by sea via Constantinople, Ottoman, or by land via Bucharest, Romania, and Vienna, Austria.

Until the 19th century, the production of rose oil in the Bulgarian Rose Valley was carried out in the form of family businesses.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Bulgaria became the world's largest producer of rose oil, with the main growing regions being Kazanlak, Karlovo, Chepn, Stara Zagora, and Nova Zagora.

In the 20th century, peak annual production in Bulgaria was as high as 6,000 kilograms, with some 200,000 workers engaged in the rose production industry. It provided more than half of the world's demand for rose oil.

Bulgarian roses come in a wide variety of Bulgarian roses, Damask roses, Violet roses, Plump roses, etc. Moreover, they are of high quality and are widely loved by people.

Before Li Mu traversed, he didn't know much about this area when he was on Taobao to sell poor quality perfume at a high price.

In a world where the internet is viral, it is not a secret which raw materials are used to produce perfume. Rose essential oil is recognized as the best raw material for making perfume.

In the 21st century, suffered from pesticides and fertilizers, urban workers have begun to promote green, natural, and pollution-free, and even some crazy ideas.

It is believed that the traditional and original process is the most environmentally friendly. For this reason, Li Mu has also studied the production process of rose oil.

Rose petals contain more oil, and stamens also have some oil, which can be added to the petals and extracted together. The methods of extracting rose oil are solvent extraction, distillation, and carbon dioxide extraction.

In the early days of Bulgaria, rose oil was extracted by the distillation method. Rose petals were obtained by steam distillation, but the oil yield from rose petals was meager, about 0.02-0.05% on average.

They must also collect Roses before the sun rises over the mountains as they lose their color and fragrance due to sunlight. The extraction of essential oils by solvent extraction in Bulgaria began in 1904. This extraction method increased production tenfold and has since become very common.

To sell the cheap perfume out of the price of high-grade perfume, Li Mu learned these several processes roughly from memory, just to fool the female customers who want to know.

Customer: "Boss, there's something wrong with the perfume you're selling!"

Li Mu: "What is the problem? If it's the quality of the product itself, I'll refund the money!"

Customer: "The perfume smell is too weak. It's not as good as the one I used to use!"

Li Mu: "Oh, this is the normal situation! Your perfume is purely natural handmade. The main raw material, rose essential oil, is artificially distilled and extracted. The concentration is naturally no better than chemically refined!"

"You have always seen roses. Is the fragrance that strong? Too much perfume concentration has surely added a chemical added in it!"

Customer: "Yeah, right!"

Li Mu: "Of course it is. If you are not sure, you can go to the florist and smell the roses. You can also go online to check the information from Baidu! If it is not the same as I said, whether there is a problem or not, I will return it without conditions, and the courier fee is on me!"

Customer: "Oh, that's fine!"

...

These are the daily work of Ferdinand in his previous life. Fortunately, the concept of environmental protection and sustainability is deeply rooted in life. It allows him to take advantage of the opportunity to make a serious profit, which is not closed the half-dead Taobao store.

Rose oil has always been a scarce commodity, with high prices on the international market. Historically, the production value of Bulgarian rose oil was 900 kg in 1849, 1,500 kg in 1852, and up to 3,000-6,000 kg from 1905 to 1914.

More than 70 percent of the roses used in the manufacture of perfumes and fragrances worldwide came from Bulgaria.

As one can see from the data above, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the golden years for the growth of the Bulgarian rose sector chain.

Ferdinand took a moment to calculate and felt that once he developed the rose industry chain, it would definitely become a new source of economic growth for Bulgaria in the future.

In 1891, Bulgaria had no pricing power even though it also had a near-monopoly on the world's supply of rose oil.

The small family-style outdated production method, unable to unite to dominate the pricing power of products; they were broken by foreign capitalists one by one. A large amount of profits were occupied by international capital, which had to be reduced to the origin of raw materials.

In addition to the above information, Ferdinand was most impressed by the "food"! Does it seem that when he arrived at the big food empire, his first reaction was whether he could eat this stuff? How does it taste?

Eating roses is unthinkable in the big food empire before they spread it to the limelight. After that, it spread back to the Western world.

There is one example, the rose milk tea with sago dew. It is said that the idea is that a woman who is a foodie who wants to drink bubble tea lacks ingredients and develops it.

The use of a bit of sago, rose tea, a small amount of mochi, matcha powder, cocoa powder, black tea, prunes, mint leaves, and other production. (The specific method to do so, the authors are not foodies, do not care about the method!)

There is also rose porridge and rose lotion. There are even fried roses, deep-fried roses, and soup made from roses. (Oh, the author has also eaten rose pancakes. The taste is fantastic - similar to staring up at the stars!) All kinds of methods, there is no way to do it, only to think.