ONCE A YEAR, HIGH IN THE MOUNTAINS OF OMAN, ROSES BLOOM

In April every year on the slopes of Jebel Akhdar, the mountains are covered in Damask roses. The air shifts. The rhythm of life changes for those who inhabit the villages of this remarkable mountain.

Each day during this month, before sunrise, families move quietly through the fields, gathering petals that have grown with care, while the night’s cool still lingers. Timing is everything.

Petals are distilled slowly, measured by timing, altitude, and restraint rather than scale. For those who live here, the season of roses is not an industry but a passage, a dialogue between labour, landscape, and inheritance, where each day carries the imprint of the past and the care of the present. The process has not changed. It cannot be rushed.

Along the Silk Route, rose water travelled as a remedy and an offering, a symbol of purity, healing, and hospitality. In Al Ayn, the lineage of rose water endures. Since the 9th century, petals have been gathered at dawn and carried within hours to copper stills over mud ovens, following an artisanal process passed from one generation to the next for more than twelve hundred years. The method remains unchanged.

The Montroi team, fascinated by this process, its heritage, and its craftsmanship, creates Montroi Rose Water through the hands of these artisans, honouring this living tradition. It is a special, small-scale process, limited by nature and time. Each bottle holds more than a thousand petals, keeping the ritual of centuries alive in every drop.