Tasmanian Rosemary, Rosemarinus officinalis

Grown close to where I live, Tasmanian rosemary is a beautiful perfumery material.  Fresh, woody, herbaceous and slightly bitter sweet.

I'm preparing to release my Autumn natural perfume and I'm deep in a material obsession with the scent of Tasmanian Rosemary. I have some particularly lovely oil produced by Alecrim Tasmania. "Alecrim" is Portuguese for Rosemary, and the name reflects the heritage of the owners who are farming a small crop inspired by the methods of French artisinal growers. They have their own lab on the farm and they distill their harvest with plans to eventually use the use the herb biomass (which would make it a waste free process).

There are lots of studies that connect the scent of rosemary with memory effects. This one is rather intriguing as it showed both rosemary and lavender increased image memory...but only rosemary improved short-term memory of numbers! A crushed sprig of rosemary is a lovely thing either way - or perhaps experiment with a cup of rosemary tea? Around a teaspoon of leaves topped with boiling water and you'll have a lovely fragrant cup.

If you try it, tell me what you think..