The Santa Bianca Method for Distilling Essential Oils

Distilling essential oils is our job and our passion, in the last fifteen years we have defined our working method that we apply every day in our farm and that we enforce with those who supply us with those essential oils that for climatic reasons we cannot produce in Tuscany.
Discover with us what the Santa Bianca method is.

There are many steps to follow to obtain a special product, from the care of agriculture and raw materials to the extraction and refining method of the final product.

Essential oils are obtained from very delicate extractions, it is necessary to follow a rigid working method to obtain a complete oil that can be summarized in three fundamental points.

 

 

1- Agriculture

it must necessarily be as non-invasive as possible, which is why we do not give any medicine to the plants, not even those permitted by the organic regulations (which we have).

The plants therefore come from semi-wild cultivation or spontaneous collection, in order to put them in a position to develop all the properties to the maximum and consequently the aromatic complexity we aim for.
Like all living beings, the plant world also thinks economically. If a plant does not need a molecule because it is helped externally, it will not develop it, just as, for example, our body does not develop specific antibodies until it is attacked by a specific microorganism. In the same way, if a plant is given a medicine that no longer makes it necessary to produce a molecule, it will simply no longer be produced.
Furthermore, the plants are harvested and distilled only once a year in the “balsamic” period, that is, in their best aromatic moment.
Obviously each plant requires particular attention and the work in the fields (even more so since the plants are not chemically assisted) is very demanding.

 

2-The distillation:

Essential oils are extracted with appropriate tools and distilled for as long as necessary.

Our technique for obtaining essential oils is that of the tradition that dates back to ancient Egypt, the proportion between the height and diameter of the stills is important, ours follow the rules of the golden section.
We distill a little at a time: a maximum of 150/200 kg of plant at a time to ensure control over pressure and temperatures, which are checked every half hour.
Plants on average give about 70% of essential oil in the first hour of distillation, which is why industrial distillations last from 20 minutes to a maximum of an hour and a half; vice versa our distillations last on average 6-8 hours up to a maximum of three days in order to extract all the properties and obtain essential oils complete in all aspects according to the principles of Pharmacopoeia.

 

 

3- The laboratory:

Our essential oils are aged for a minimum of 6 months up to a maximum of two years in glass containers.

It is necessary to allow the aroma time to stabilize definitively and be as pleasant as possible, after which the oils are bottled pure at 100% exactly as they came out of the distiller, no subsequent intervention is made (no addition of synthetic molecules in the laboratory or dilutions in other oils such as GSE).
We rarely proceed with a rectification with a spagyric redistillation column used only if we want to remove impurities.

Another aspect that we consider very important is sustainability, we are a company that does not chase unbridled development but, rather, aims for homeostasis, by cultivating the land we realize that there cannot be infinite growth in a finite environment.

We are the heirs of a thousand-year-old profession, and we owe our knowledge to those who, over the centuries, have conducted pioneering experiments and research. We hope with our work to keep intact a tradition that could disappear in a world increasingly moving towards chemical and synthetic processes or aimed only at profit.

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