Here is something exciting for you in today’s blog. Come with us as OilGrow visits an essential oil distillery on some Tea Tree farms in KZN. These farms supply some of the best quality Tea Tree essential oils in the world. If you know something about this specific oil you’ll know that Australia is the country that made it famous. They produced the best quality oil in the past and introduced it to the world. Since then the South African producers have really proven their worth. They started to produce Tea Tree essential oil that equals if not tops the quality from Australia.
Some facts about Tea Tree
Here are some facts about Tea Tree and the industry. The plant grows naturally in South Africa and in the beginning stages many South African producers had to wild harvest their plants to distill it. This wild harvesting is the best way to get an organic label for the product. Although it is a very expensive process to get an organic label, it is less of an expense on the production outlay side. Read more about this type of process in the Farmer’s Weekly article here.
The farmers who decide to plant Tea Tree plantations can currently easily produce enough to fill the whole South African demand. Furthermore, producers fills at least 20% of the global requirement exported annually. Tea tree is one of the major essential oils exported to the EU from South Africa. That is to say that SA contributes about 1% of the essential oil requirements of the EU. But we are steadily growing with keen interest also from India.
The following information was borrowed from the Mountain Herb Estate Nursery. Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) is a perennial plant and needs well-drained soil in sun to grow optimally. It is a hardy plant that grows into a medium-sized tree with a papery bark. You can see the height of the tree in the photo above of Dr. Denise next to the trees – about a 1.5 to 2 meter high tree. The tiny linear pointed leaves grow in several layers. If left to flower, small white bottle-brush-type flowers appear in spring followed by tiny cup-shaped, woody capsules. See the images on the Mountain Herb Estate Nursery website here.
The medicinal uses for Tea Tree are just amazing. It boasts with anti-septic, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. Tea tree is used to stimulate the immune system, open blocked noses and help with chronic and acute infections. Other uses include helping the body deal with colds, glandular fever, cystitis and urinary infections. It is popular as a hair rinse to combat oily hair or a facial rinse to help deal with acne. It can even be used to gargle to help with sore throats.
Tea Tree farming and fair trade principles
As OilGrow visits an essential oil distillery and Tea Tree farm, we invite you to come with and see for yourself. The ones we visited are Inter-Agri Oils close to Port Shepstone and Windy Ridge Essential Oils near Eshowe. What an experience to drive through hectares of beautiful, top quality Tea Tree plantations! The fields are tended and harvested by manual labour. About 160 local people are employed to maintain the Tea Tree and Macadamia plantations at Inter-Agri. Notably, all of them are employed under Fair Trade principles. We think this is such a special approach and feel proud of being associated with such an initiative.
Inter-Agri Oils share the Oribi Gorge terrain with the largest buck type in South Africa – the Eland. As a matter of fact, they have a Game farm as part of the group, where one can take game drives to see the beautiful wild life. The farm focuses on Tea Tree and Macadamia, planted alongside each other. It boasts with a beautiful body of water that is sufficient to irrigate the entire farm. Interestingly, Tea Tree is only irrigated in the drier winter months. The spring-summer rainfall is sufficient irrigation in the rainy season. Inter-Agri Oils produces top quality Tea Tree, Rose Geranium, Rosemary and Macadamia Nut oil. They are proud members of SAEOPA (South African Essential Oil Producers Association). They also have stamps of approval from a host of certification boards such as EcoCert, Fair for Life, USDA Organic and CECOS amongst others. Have a look on their website.
The Distillery
What a privilege to see their state of the art distillery. Tea Tree leaves are added to two of four pots. Large kettles generate the steam required for the distillation process. They pump water into a holding tank that constantly supplies the steam producing kettles. This kettle uses macadamia shells as fuel. What a holistic way of farming! Macadamia shells is a sustainable fuel source with a very low carbon footprint. We are just in love with this farm’s ethical farming practice.
This steam enters their big pots with tea tree leaves from below. Consequently, it moves through the tea tree material to the top, it carries the tea tree oil with it. The steam and oil mixture now gets cooled down through huge condensers. Once cool, the oil separates from the water. Eventually they tap off the oil. The water used for cooling the condensers move through cooling towers before circulating back into the system.
They have four pots, two are run simultaneously. The other two are emptied of waste products and filled again. The remainders of Tea Tree leaves after distillation are devoid of any therapeutic oils. This waste material is re-used as mulch in the fields. During harvest time the distillation process is completed over a six week period for 24 hours in shifts. Needless to say, it is an intense time of labour but well worth the efforts.
Then end product
The oil and water is pushed into a separating tank. The Tea Tree oil floats on top of the water. As noted, it is a colourless layer on top of the water which is then separated from each other. All the tea tree oil extracted is combined in a 5 ton stainless steel mixing tank where it is blended to form a homogeneous batch. From here it is then stored in large dedicated Fluorinated HDPE drums. Each drum is marked with fully traceable information on that particular batch of oil. An interesting fact is that the fluorinated drums are treated thus to ensure that the essential oil doesn’t corrode the plastic drums. Fluorination forms a protective layer between the plastic and the essential oil. This is an internationally acceptable practice and does not harm the integrity of the essential oil. These drums are then stored in a temperature controlled dark room, ready for shipping.
We find it so refreshing to see the process from start to finish. Although we know that the oil we buy are of exceptional quality, it is such an amazing experience to learn more about the farming practices of these producers. We are even prouder to say that the South African oils that OilGrow sources are of exceptional quality. Furthermore that it is from Farmers with exceptional farming practices. Thank you to these amazing farms for having us and showing us around. We know you will be blessed going forward.