An afternoon of Distillation, Tea and Chat.
A little while back, I was invited to a demonstration of Home distillation by Danilla Mansfield. As I had been to a couple before and knew how much fun they could be, I jumped at the opportunity. I also saw this as an excellent chance to get some pictures and give you readers who haven't seen distillation done a taste of what you are missing.
So. On the Saturday I drove to Danilla's house. You didn't even need to have the address.You knew it had to be her house for the simple fact there were great beautiful bushes of blooming lavender in her front garden. What else would you expect from an Aromatherapist originally from England
Before she started with the distillation, I got a tour of her garden. She has a huge Clary bush growing. I had never seen Clary before in plant form and didn't realize how big the leaves are. Larger than my hand and soft. Very soft and a lovely deep dark green. Unfortunately it was too early in the year for flowers, I would have loved to have seen it bloom.
Then it was time to start with the distillation. First things first with the set up.
Here you can see the 'Mother Flask' which is the Large Flask Danilla is fitting in one of the tubes that leads steam from the heated water (on the burner) into the Mother Flask which will contain the Lavender flowers.
The "Mother Flask' filled with Lavender Flowers.