Rose plant is flowery, perfume-like, sweet and very pleasant. It belongs to (Rose family), subfamily Rosoidae. The used plant part Petals Normally, alcoholic extracts or watery destillates (rose water, obtained as a by-product when distilling oil of rose) are used in the kitchen

The content of essential oil in the petals is poor and far below 1%. Its characteristic components are acyclic monoterpene alcohols, geraniol (up to 75%), citronellol (20%) and nerol; further trace constituents (e.g., damascenone) improve the fragrance. Characteristic of the fresh flower's odour is 2-phenyl ethanol, which is, though, lost during steam distillation and accumulates in the rose water. Thus, rose oil and rose water do not equal each other exactly.

Origin

Even in the best case, only 10 g of the essential oil are distilled from as much as 100 kg fresh rose flowers (0.01%); redistillation of the by-product rose water triples the yield. Solvent extraction gives nearly ten times as much and preserves the natural content of 2-phenyl ethanol (ca. 60%).

Rose is chiefly known as a decorative and fragrant ornamental (although most garden cultivators have but poor fragrance), yet it has culinary importance. Rose products are comparatively unimportant in Europe, yet rose water is important for flavoring marzipan and is occasionally found in drinks. Rose and rose oil (attar) are more important in Western and Central Asia, where they are used for countless sweets. So, Turks dissolve some locum, a very sweet confectionery of rubbery texture with strong rose fragrance, in their coffee. Rose fragrance plays some role in most Islamic cultures; it often has cultic significance or is, in Arabic countries, used as a room deodorizer. Rose is of lesser importance in cooking; yet it appears as one of the innumerable ingredients to Moroccan ras el hanout