Preface Flavors and fragrances played an important role in Indian culture since ancient times. These come naturally from many plants and animal sources. Generally these flavors and fragrances have sweet smell that are known as aroma and those plants bear this aroma are known as aromatic plants. These aromas come from certain odoriferous substances known as essential oils. These essential oils are present in the specific cells called as glandular cells present in the plant part that may be anywhere on plant body. Upon rupture of these glands aroma come out which are volatile in nature and combination of all chemical constituents are fragrance what we get sense. Essential oils are used in perfumery, aromatherapy, cosmetics, incense, medicine, household insect repellent cleaning products, and for flavoring food and drink. They are also valuable commodities in the agricultural industries as antifeedants, repellents, botanical insecticides, natural herbicides and growth boosters are still open to fascinating realms of research. All informations are confined in scattered manner and hence an effort has been made to collect all informations and compiled together and represented in this book in a simple manner to serve the basic concept to the readers. This book complied with five chapters’ viz. 1. Introduction 2. General extraction method for essential oils 3. Market statistics for importance of essential oils 4. Individual medicinal and aromatic plants 5. New aromatic plants (In India) and their future research.

The concern for nature and the focuss for all things which are basic and natural has been spearheading to a green movement of everything natural and nature-based consumer products all over the world. God has given diseases and remidies also in the nature only we have to properly find out. In today’s world of consumer boom, the role of essential oils has increased many folds. Uptil now known applications of essential oils, more and more areas are opening up which will benefit the industry. Use of essential oils in therapeutics is becoming popular in India, China, Japan and European countries. Aromatherapy involves the use of essential oils and aromatics derived from plants to cure diseases. These plants are known as aromatic plants. Aromatic plants possess odorous volatile substances which occur as essential oil, gum exudate, balsam and oleoresin in one or more parts, namely, root, wood, bark, stem, foliage, flower and fruit. The characteristic aroma is due to a variety of complex chemical compounds. The term essential oil is concomitant to fragrance or perfumes because these fragrances are oily in nature and they represent the essence or the active constituents of the plants. They are called volatile or ethereal oils as they evaporate when exposed to air at ordinary temperatures. Essential oils are highly concentrated, low volume, high value products.

Plant oils are obtained from their plant hosts through a variety of processes commonly called Extraction process. Essential oils are extracted from different parts of the plants. The quality and quantity of the oil is mainly depends on the method of extraction and the quantity of the raw materials used. For example, Lavender is extracted from its flowers, Orange from the rind of its fruit, Frankincense from the resin of its tree, Cinnamon from its bark, Pine from its needles, clove from flower buds and so on. Production of a good quality essential oil, the cultivation factors also play a vital role like soil quality, climatic and geographic conditions etc. As example, Jasmine flowers must be picked by hand at dawn on the very first day they open. A Sandalwood tree must be 30 years old and 30 feet high before it is ready to produce its best quality oil. Further the quantity of the plant materials are also matters for the price and quality of the essential oil. As an example, it takes roughly 12,000 Rose blossoms to produce 5 ml of Rose. Whereas it take 100 kilos of Lavender leaves to produce 3 liters of Lavender. As a result Rose is roughly 24 times more expensive than Lavender.

A concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds obtained from aromatic plants is referred to as essential oil. It is so-called to indicate that the oil is the fragrant essence of the plant from which it is extracted generally through various distillation methods. The economics working behind essential oils has three components. First, the cultivation of herbs and plants used to extract essential oils; second, the actual process of extraction of the oils; and, third, the marketing and actual sale of these oils. But the major emphasis is often given to the agrotechnology, since the crop yield and yield of the essential oil depends on the quality of cultivation. The cost of cultivation of herbs in the developing countries per hectare is estimated at US $ 600 to 1100. This cost mainly comprises labour cost and as such this industry is uniquely suitable only for developing nations. The revenue from essential oils after the extraction per hectare is estimated to be around US $ 2500 to US $ 6500. According to industry sources, more than 3,500 essential oils are known. Out of these, some 400 are used for commercial purposes on a regular basis. These are obtained mostly from agricultural plants, some from wild plants that may be seasonal or perennial. Oil can be extracted from any part of plants—from leaves, flowers, fruits, roots etc. Whatever the source of essential oils, they have complex compositions, containing alcohol, aldehydes, ketones, phenols, esters, ethers and turpenes in varying proportions.

Agarwood Oil Biological Source : Wood of Aquilaria agalloch, Aquilaria crassna, A. Khasiana. Family : Thymelaeaceae Common names : Agarwood, Aloeswood, Eaglewood, Gaharu or Oudh. Plant Introduction : Aquilaria is a fast-growing, archaic tropical forest tree, which occurs in South and Southeast Asia, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. Agarwood is a fast growing, evergreen tree, that normally grows to 18 - 21 m but sometimes up to 40 m in height. It bears sweetly-scented, snow-white flowers. The trees occasionally become infected with a parasite mould and begin to produce an aromatic resin in response to this attack. As the fungus grows, the tree produces a very rich, dark resin within the heartwood. The tree grows in natural forests at an altitude of a few meters above sea level to about 1000 meters, and it grows best around 500 meters. It can grow on a wide range of soils, including poor sandy soil. Seedlings need a lot of shade and water. Trees grow very fast, and start producing flowers and seeds as early as four years old.

Medicinal and aromatic plants have been known for millennia and are rich source of therapeutic and cosmetic agents for the prevention of health diseases and critical skin ailments. India is the rich source for the medicinal and aromatic plants and export many plant parts for the research work to the many countries as raw materials. The major market in the world for essential oils is the United States, followed by Japan and Europe. However, production continues to be concentrated in Europe, with seven of the world’s largest essential oil processing firms. In the United States, the major users of essential oils are the soft drink companies. Japan accounts for 10 % of the world demand. The Canadian market is domi­nated by the United States perfume and flavouring industry. France is dominating the world perfumery market, and Switzerland is one of the leaders in the pharma-ceutical field. Britain and India are known to feature strongly in the flavouring sector. The essential oil industry is characterised by a number of difficulties, including lack of stable quality, inconsistent supplies, and variability of active ingredients owing to environmental effects. Even though according to World Health Organization, herbal medicines are lucrative globally and represent a steady high market value in every year.