Botanical Name: Elettaria cardamomum
Botanical Family: Zingiberaceae
Extraction Method: Steam distilled
Part of Plant Distilled: Fruit
Country of Origin: Costa Rica
Cultivation Method: Organic
Composition: 100% Elettaria cardamomum
Consistency: Thin viscosity
Scent Description: Clarifying, sweet and spicy with a hint of green-eucalyptus.
In Living Libations: Love Wine, Zest the Best, Yogi Tooth Serum
Blends well with: Cinnamon, Clove, Thyme, Ylang, Rose Otto, Frankincense, and Orange.
Uses: A delicious culinary oil, just a drop or two of cardamom will bring exotically sweet spice to your favorite dishes and love potions. Add to a massage blend to unwind, clear the mind and skin. Adds an exotic-green masculine note to colognes and amorous perfumes. Diffuse to infuse environments with welcoming clarity. A dash in a bath to vivify.
The plant energy of our Cardamom Essential Oil draws upon thousand years of use. Referenced on clay tablets of Sumeria, enjoyed by the ancient Greeks and Romans as a pleasant perfume, Cardamom oil also carries a charged, clarifying energy. The ancient Egyptians used Cardamom to freshen their mouths while the Vikings used the fragrant spice in their cooking and wine making.
Our Cardamom Essential Oil is distilled in Costa Rica, where the spice grows in fragrant green pods. Cardamom is one of the most classic, sought after spices in the world. Enjoyed in chai throughout the Middel East, cardamom coffee is the most popular drink in the Saudi Arabia, with the spice being the key ingredient to what we now think of as Arabian coffee.
Ancient Indian Brahmanic scriptures enlisted cardamom for imbalances, including bad breath. Many modern Indians still chew cardamom wrapped in betel nut leaves to juice digestion and freshen breath after a meal. With its invigorating and mood-boosting aroma, it melts muscles and chimes minds as it lifts spirits.
Cardamom's seed pods are like green diamonds of resilient strength that is charismatic as a fragrance or enjoyed in a drop in honey. These sweet and spicy gems inspire with their exotic aroma emitting a clarion call that supports action attuned to the frequency of clarity.
"Cardamom is pleasanter of savour and smell with some small bitterness."
~ Galen, Seventh Book of Simples, circa 15th century
"When the winter has settled us, we breathe in vinegar and cardamom, and consider the value of rain."
~ Liz Lefroy
"At the time Sumerian society was based on matriarchal principles... The Asu [female herbalists] probably used distilled plants essences – we can suggest this because a clay distillation vessel dating back 5500 BCE was found at a Sumerian grave site, from this we can begin to see how aromatics such as cardamom, through the Sumerians, became used by all of the other cultures they influenced."
~ Jennifer Peace Rhind, Fragrance and Wellbeing
