In the foothills of the Iberian System, right on the limits of the province of Zaragoza with Teruel, is the town of Plenas. Among the many and varied activities that its inhabitants have carried out, there is one that is still close in their memory. There, in Plenas, people know about lavender, and deeply feel its aroma that permeated the air at the end of the summers. Many neighbors have leathery hands from so much handling the sickle and making bundles with that plant. And it is that, in Plenas, the cereal harvesting activity was linked to the lavender harvesting. In mid-August the town crier announced the beginning of the campaign. "Let anyone who wants to bring lavender to the boiler to take it from tomorrow" The orographic conditions of Plenas, 800 meters of altitude, cold climate, good lighting and sunshine, loose and limestone soils, are ideal for the development of a spontaneous flora, whose maximum representative is lavender. This plant (Lavandula latifolia) is very similar to the lavender (Lavandula spica), although as the saying goes: " Lavender and lavender are the same thing". The "speck", as this plant is popularly called in Plenas, blooms in summer and se harvested in mid-August. Although 1979 was the last year that the lavender was cut in Plenas, its neighbors have not lost their agility and practice in this temporary work. Thanks to the collaboration of many of them, we will be able to recreate this activity that was an important source of income for the most humble families. The lavender served me, because being one of the most humble families in the town, to survive, to earn a little money and for the festivities, and thus I could enjoy the festivities like any citizen of the town ”. The campaign to collect the lavender or “speck” began in mid-August and lasted for a month, sometimes a month and a half, depending on the year and the strength of each one. In my family there have been seasons of making a thousand arrobas of lavender or more during the campaign, which lasted a month for a few years, a month and a half for others. Although the necessary tools were the zoqueta and the sickle, that is to say, the same as for the mowing of the cereal, some also used the “thimble”. The socket is so that the hand can be preserved, so that there is no cut when doing it in this position. We call this a thimble because all the harvest that is being cut is getting between the zoqueta and this finger. When the harvest does not fit in this gap, between the finger and the socket, you do the action of moving it all to the position between this finger and this one. And these are the tools, with the sickle to harvest the wheat. The jacket was a kind of front to protect the clothes. Its discomfort to move freely made it a garment worn only by some reapers. the harvest day began before sunrise, with the fresh weather, and good reapers would collect up to 300 or 400 kilos of lavender per day in the first days of the campaign. The reaped bushes were left in bundles along the table or field in which they were working. Then they were piled up in bundles, placing the flowers or candles inside. This is the way we had (to keep the bundles), because our father taught us a lot to cut lavender. The lavender, if the candles are placed inside, the bundle is much longer. The humidity, especially those of us who were going to mow, weighed down because it weighed more kilos. For the company it would be bad but for us who were going to win four dogs, that was divine. The bundles were tied, to be able to transport them comfortably to the point where the cavalry, the cart, or in recent years the tractor with the trailer, was made with esparto fences, reeds or rye straw. Enzamarrar consisted of wrapping the sickle with the sheepskin at the end of the day or when the work area was changed. In this way the risks of accidental cutting with the tool were avoided. The caballerias were the comfortable and inexpensive means of transport to carry the lavender bundles to the esplanade where the pot was placed. Once there, the manager carefully weighed the bundles in a contraption built with poplar logs and a large Roman. Weighing was done in kilos, but formerly the common measure was the at. To each of those who brought bundles of lavender, the person in charge of the pot extended a duly completed voucher, which was exchanged for money at later dates. In it the date, kilos and the name of the reaper were indicated. The lavender received was stored in the same place where it was going to be essentially transformed, after a distillation process. The huge iron boiler is made up of two bodies divided inside by a grid or perforated sheet. This separates the lavender bushes from the water necessary for their distillation. The place to place the pot requires the presence of running water, both to provide the 14 or 15 wells needed for each cooking, and to cool the steam outlet tubes. The capacity of the upper half of the boiler is 50 arrobas, that is, about 550 to 600 kilos of lavender can be accommodated. To get more out of each boiling, you have to press the bundles, stepping on the surface. The boiler sits on a stone and clay cavity that acts as a furnace. In the past, in the first two days of cooking, gorse and all kinds of dry plants were used as fuel . Later, to save fuel, the plants of lavender already cooked and dried in the sun were used. The fumes from the oven exit through a small chimney or chaminera built with the same materials as the mouth. When the water in the boiler is about to boil, it is time to close it. A joint made of clay seals the lid hermetically during cooking, thus preventing the escape of vapors. Fixing the lid to the pot is done with iron staples pressed in with the hammer. From this moment on, the distillation process begins. In it, the steam from the boiling water expands through the boiler, heating the entire green mass and vaporizing the water and essential oil that the lavender contains. Then, this mixture of vapors begins to travel the 12 meters of zinc pipe that, starting from the gas outlet of the boiler, travels through the ditch in the form of a serpentine inside the water. The contact of the steam with the walls of the long pipe, cooled by running water, causes the gases that circulate through it to cool down on their way until they liquefy The resulting liquid is a suspension of water and oil that ends at the end of the pipe . There it is collected with a funnel in a zinc container called a Florentine vase ”. On average, each cook usually lasts from two and a half to three hours, and its control has always been based on the experience and practice of the person in charge of the boiler. The laborers are in charge of keeping the fire at its peak throughout the entire process, as it is necessary to maintain continuous control over the production of steam. The Florentine glass facilitates the continuous flow of water while the oil, less dense, floats on the surface of it, staying at the top. The water exits through a drain at the bottom of the container and is collected in a bucket. In this way it is possible to detect any escape of essence and, at the same time, to calculate the end of the boiling, when 7 or 8 pools of water have been obtained. The separation of essential oil from water is a delicate task that the manager has always done. Inside a funnel, covered by its outlet with the fingers, the mixture of water, oil and impurities is poured. Little by little the water, which, due to its lower density, is under the oil is released, until only the essence remains. Normally, between 3 and 5 kilos of lavender or lavender essence have been obtained per boiled, and in normal season four cooks were carried out per day. In the good campaigns, the production in Plenas was around 800 kilos of essence. If in the first two or three days of harvest, 30 or 40,000 kilos of lavender were weighed, it was a clear indication that there would be a campaign, then the hiring of laborers was doubled in order to cook day and night, maintaining a work rate of seven boilers per day. Once the cooking was finished, the laborers extracted the staples and took out the boiled one. After removing the lid, the strong aromatic vapor invades the environment. With the help of forks, the cooked bush is extracted, spreading it on the ground to dry and then use it as fuel in new boilers. In the past, at the end of the campaign, if there was still excess dry bush, it used to be used to build the roofs of the mountain huts and to place it on top of the fences of the corrals. Although the buyers of the essence did not give information about its destination, it was known what took advantage of its medicinal properties in the pharmaceutical industry, and its aroma was highly appreciated in cosmetics and perfumery to make Lavender Water. Well, they took her away and they didn't tell me, nor did I ask because they hadn't told me. They did not explain it to me here, because I would take it out here, collect it in the drums, and when the campaign was over, well I would warn two days before or one day, and they would come to do the bidding and other times they would not come and I had to go I went to Barcelona to do the bidding. This obscurantism did not prevent the curiosity of Pedro Martín. "El Vito" as he is called in Plenas, will motivate him to make his own cologne. Because after I left and when I wanted to make the cologne myself, I took a little boiler like that. I say look it's big and with which I have taken out and that I do not have essence. And I made myself a boiler to distract myself, that one carries it in my head, and then, when I took out, I took the Barcelona phone book and started with the suppliers of a site to ask now Another one and another, and they gave me the formula and I did it right. That cologne is made as it should be for one, for the home. If you want to make it looser, less alcohol and less essence. 30 or 40 years ago, it was so much the amount of lavender collected in Plenas, which were installed up to 3 boilers. Today, thanks to the will of Pedro Martín and a group of residents of the town, we have been able to rebuild what that seasonal productive activity was like, which in other times meant a source of income for many families.
