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Here are some Jasmine (jasminum officinale) “fun facts”:

It takes about 1,000 pounds of Jasmine blossoms to make 1 pound of Jasmine oil.

That’s about 3.6 million blossoms!

Jasmine blooms at night, and the blossoms last only one day. They must be picked before sunrise, or most of the scent will have disappeared.

Jasmine oil isn’t a true “essential oil”. Rather, it is an “absolute”. Absolutes are made by adding alcohol to the blossoms to extract the aromatic molecules. Then the alcohol is evaporated, leaving the absolute, which is rather thick. A trace amount of the alcohol solvent may remain in the final product, which is one reason why absolutes are generally not used in therapeutic aromatherapy.

We have an indoor jasmine plant (subspecies Sambac) and we adore it. It blooms all year long, and when just one bloom opens up in the evening, you can smell the incredible scent of jasmine the moment you walk into the room! This year, we also grew Jasmine Sambac in our garden, and they did quite well. We’ll see if they are winter-hardy.