Rose Festival in Taif delights one and all

The 10th edition of the weeklong Taif Rose Festival concluded Saturday on a high note in the presence of flower lovers from all over the Kingdom, including westerners, Saudis and citizens of the neighboring Gulf states.
The festival, held at King Faisal Park, was inaugurated jointly by Makkah Gov. Prince Mishaal bin Abdullah and Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA).
Many visitors bought rose oil and rose water, according to organizers who said that this year saw an increase in rose production and also visitors in the 10-year history of the festival. “The response was overwhelming,” Eid Al-Swat, chief organizer of the festival, told Arab News. He said that there were requests from people to extend it for three days but they could not do so. He added that several European residents from Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam also visited the festival.
He said that during week days the number of visitors was around 5,000 to 8,000. There were several recreational activities for children on the sidelines of the Festival. Every year Taif Municipality and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities coordinate with local farmers to organize the festival, which is visited by both local and international tourists, he added.
Al-Swat said, “We have celebrated nine years of allegiance to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah in a floral method. We prepared a rose carpet with 111,000 flowers of 50 various varieties of roses stretching 750 square meters to welcome Prince Mishaal and Prince Sultan bin Salman.”
Ahmed Al-Jaied, another prominent official of Rose Festival, said, “Rose farms have spread from the more well-known areas of Al-Shafa and Al-Hada to many highland areas surrounding Taif governorate which has 860 farms producing more than 300 million roses annually. There are also 50 distilling plants for production of rose water and rose oil.”
He said that the output of distilling plants producing natural perfumes and rose oil of different grades, this year, is between 18,000 and 20,000 tolas of pure rose oil, which is sold at prices ranging from SR1,500 to SR2,000 per tola.
The bottles of ‘Al-Aroos,’ or first-extract rose water, are sold for SR40 each, while ordinary rose water is sold for SR20 a bottle throughout the year. Taif rose water is characterized by its sweet smell and rich flavor compared to imported rose water.
The extraction of rose oil is done at special traditional distilling plants. The roses are first cooked in large pots, each with a capacity of between 10,000 and 20,000 roses.
When the vapors rise from the cooking pot, they are condensed into droplets through a cooling pipe known locally as Al-Kou’, which carries the distilled water and rose oil from the pipe to Al-Talqiah, a vessel made of glass, which comes in different sizes.