Rose Water

Rose water is made by distilling rose petals with water, and Cyprus has a genuine industry built on it: the mountain village of Agros, high in the Troodos, grows damask roses and distils them every May, a harvest it has turned into a small local trade. Greek kitchens use it more sparingly than Cypriot ones, mostly in sweets that arrived through Ottoman cooking rather than in everyday food.

Loukoumia, the set jellies dusted heavily with icing sugar that Geroskipou has been making since the nineteenth century, are usually scented with it. Cypriot mahalepi, a plain cornflour pudding, is served cold under a thin rose syrup rather than flavoured through, and amygdalota and bourekia me anari both take a little. Kourabiedes are sprinkled with it warm, before the icing sugar goes on.

Strength varies enormously from bottle to bottle, from barely floral to overpowering, so it should go in a few drops at a time and be tasted rather than measured straight into the bowl. Too much tastes of soap rather than roses, and there is no way back once it is in. The petals themselves are preserved whole in syrup as glyko triantafyllo.