Gholabgiri (Kashan rosewater harvest)

Before sunrise, families harvest the flowers, believing that blooms picked then carry a stronger scent. Visitors may join the harvest, then follow the flowers to the distillery to watch the rosewater being made.

Thirty kilograms of rose petals are placed in a large copper vessel with water. Once the vessel is sealed and heated, steam passes through the flowers, carries the essential oils to a cooling coil, and is collected. A single distillation usually takes at least several hours, and the finished rosewater is graded by purity into five categories.

The season is free to attend and draws large numbers of visitors, who tour distilleries, join harvests, and attend exhibitions and performances. A related tradition, Gol-Ghaltan, involves rolling infants in rose petals.

Golabgiri matters as a living craft season: the work itself is what is marked, repeated each year for around a thousand years in the same few valleys of Kashan County. Its timing is set by the roses rather than by a calendar rule, so it runs from mid-May to mid-June instead of falling on a fixed date. The season is open to visitors without charge, and the graded rosewater it produces is both its output and its measure. It is not inscribed on any UNESCO list.