In addition to our local projects, like the rose orchards or the saffron fields, we try to create many synergies that benefit the local economy in the regions we work most. Besides re-greening, those include fresh produce, fruit juices, dry fruit, honey, artisan natural cosmetics etc. Most of which happens locally, in very short circuits.
We are also attentive to the local crafts, and collaborate with stone carvers, metalworkers (who build our copper stills), jewelers (for the fragrant jewelry) etc. We also pay attention to crafts that are receding or even disappearing in some regions.
We produce the saffron in remote villages of the province of Herat, a province also known for its very old glass blowing tradition, made from local sands that create beautiful natural blue glass, with hues ranging from turquoises to lapis lazuli.
Their recipe to prepare the blue glass, from the mixture of sandquartz, plant material, copper dust, etc. is estimated to exsit since the 7th century BC.
By and large, the craft is dying nowadays and is only practiced by a few scattered families. The demand is low as there is chinese productions that looks the same and are comparatively unexpensive. Also, there is no more tourism like during the 60's and, tellingly, the traditionally made pieces have irregulatities that today's markets don't value.
So, in the light of this context, we started collaborating with two of the last artisan families.
We had intially hoped we could produce attar bottles, for us and possilby for a good friend of ours, with whom we work in India and who has a personal passion for glass blowing. He was very interested in the perspective of using the bottles for his quality ouds.
Disappointingly, and despite working for several days on prototypes, it turned out that the finalized bottles, with varying diameters of their neck (and of its thickness + irregular form), had issuses with properly sealing and waterproofness. The technique is great for their usual designs like fruit plates or vases, but was not precise enough for attar bottles.
It is not rare to work on projects or leads that have to be reoriented, or even at times dropped altogether. As a matter of fact, with experimental distillations, it is often the case. Sometimes after a lot of effort work and funds used.
Here, on top of paying the prototyping well, we finally settled for producing a limited series of gift bottles for our saffron, as we could use tailor cut hard cork to fit the bottlenecks. We also helped the glass blowing artisans finding new contacts in Kabul to sell some of their usual designs and offered the little saffron vials to well-off Kabuli potential patrons for their work.
Below are a few images of the collaboration process.
The last image shows a few of the protoypes.
