The world's best flower-eating experience called "Spirits of Roses. - Part 2

This month we feature EDIBLE GARDEN, an edible flower specialty store that challenges the ultimate flower-eating experience. What do the "rose spirits," who have pushed the envelope of edible roses, bring to the table?

writer：Ryoko Kuraishi

Edible flowers are a niche crop with few production bases to begin with, and are not even included in the major commodities in agriculture.

As a professional-use specialty store, the most difficult task was to establish a sustainable and stable production and sales method.

In addition, the hurdle became even higher because Ozawa and his team insisted on pesticide-free production (flowers, which do not have a barrier layer of tissue like stems and leaves, easily absorb pesticides and chemical substances).

To begin with, it is considered extremely difficult to cultivate fragrant edible roses without pesticides. "To begin with, growing fragrant edible roses without pesticides is considered very difficult, because their high fragrance means they are susceptible to insect damage.

Some of the growers we deal with are engaged in the production of naturally grown roses without pesticides or in open fields, but they lose distribution during the winter season.

What we needed to do was to establish a technique to grow roses year-round without the use of chemical pesticides.

Nobel Rose" is grown in a plant factory.

Mr. Ozawa and his team have realized a plant factory that can grow edible roses year-round without pesticides (unfortunately, the details inside the factory are an outside secret)!

By controlling the environment, we were able to cut costs by more than 30% compared to conventional edible rose varieties.

The result is "Nobel Rose," the world's first edible rose that can be shipped year-round.

By establishing a strong network with growers and setting up a plant factory that can grow edible roses year-round under the supervision of agricultural scientists, Ozawa and his team were able to overcome the problems of conventional edible flowers, such as "low freshness," "lack of stable supply," and "inability to grow fragrant flowers that attract pests.

Their next challenge was to create a "new flower eating experience.

Rose Spirits Production Process. Fresh edible rose petals are frozen in liquid nitrogen and crushed.

Spirits of the rose, taking the characteristics of the flower to the limit.

Thus, the newly launched "Edible Flower Institute" is a side project of EDIBLE GARDEN.

The Edible Flower Laboratory is working with top bartenders and chefs to develop a theory of edible flower pairing in order to bring out the potential of edible flowers.

The "Edible Flower Institute" aims to discover qualities other than decorative qualities in flowers based on ingredient analysis, and to create floral food experiences that have never existed before.

Our first project here was a collaboration with Shuzo Nagumo, a mixologist and producer of "memento mori" and "FOLKLORE", to research a "floral cocktail.

Nagumo's flower cocktails were so intense that they completely overturned my own experience of flower eating.

Rose petals are crushed into powder (left) and placed in a distiller (right).

The fragrance of roses is divided into 10 notes, and the best combination is sought.

Ms. Nagumo's "Spirits of Roses" was described by Mr. Ozawa as "the pinnacle of the flower eating experience.

The word "rose" is used in a single word, but there are more than 400 aromatic components in all varieties of roses.

These aromatic components can be divided into 10 types of notes, including rose, citrus, fruity, myrrh, and green, and the combination of different notes is what makes rose fragrance unique.

This spirit expresses the "rose fragrance" as it is.

In the production of the spirit, we prepared a variety of edible roses from Nobel Rose and selected the seven fresh flowers that have the most rose-like aroma.

Only the petals are frozen and crushed, then subjected to a decompression distiller to extract the rose extract. This is then combined with vodka to create "Rose Spirits.

The aroma is overwhelming, as if you were buried in a bouquet of roses rising from the glass. But the taste is also superb. The lush sweetness unique to roses has been properly brought out.

The combination of aroma and taste is the best rose experience in the world, I can say that.

Cocktails made with rose spirits are served as "memento mori".

Last year, "noma," which Mr. Ozawa has long been aiming for as the "world's best restaurant," adopted "Nobel Rose," marking another milestone for the company.

The next goal is to establish delicious floral cuisine as part of Japan's food culture, and to achieve inbound tourism for this purpose.

Of course, there are challenges ahead.

We need to further develop varieties suitable for distribution, update cultivation conditions such as temperature and light, insect control, pruning of branches and leaves, and other management tasks, and increase the number of creators who can offer creative food experiences by combining aromatic ingredients.

I think the most potential is in cocktails, homemade liqueurs, and spirits.

I look forward to the creativity of bartenders who can create new and unique flowery food experiences!