• the nature network
  • Careers
  • PR/News
  • Contact
  • EN
    • DE
MB_Logo_RGBMB_Logo_RGBMB_Logo_RGBMB_Logo_RGB
  • MartinBauer
  • Products
    • Teas
    • Botanical extracts for food and beverages
    • Botanical raw material and powders
    • SuperFine
    • Botanical Extracts, Tinctures and Powders for Animal Nutrition
  • Applications
    • Teas
    • Beverages
    • Confectionery and Ice cream
    • Bakery und Cereals
    • Animal Nutrition
    • Extraction and API
    • Alcoholic Beverages
    • Dairy Products
  • Quality and safety
  • Sustainability
    • Climate neutral
    • Nature
    • Supply chain
  • Blog
  • Downloads
  • the nature network
  • Careers
  • PR/News
  • Contact
  • EN
    • DE
Back to Overview
December 19, 2020

Chamomile: Blossoming Around the World

Chamomile is unmistakable with its bright yellow center, white petals, and floral, apple-like scent. Unknown to most, chamomile is actually a common name for several daisy-like plants of the family Asteraceae.

However, there are two types that have stood out amongst the rest due to their use in traditional medicine: German chamomile (Matricaria recutita L.) and Roman chamomile (Chamomilum nobile). In this blog, we are talking about German chamomile – a favorite amongst many consumers because it makes a better tasting cup of tea.

Chamomile is native to Europe and West Africa and since ancient times, it has been highly valued by Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks for its medicinal properties – so much so that it was worthy enough to offer it to their gods. They regularly used the chamomile flowers to treat skin conditions caused by dry weather and as a calming beverage in the form of tea or tisane.* Today, chamomile is still valued for its personal care and calming benefits, but now it is being cultivated commercially in many countries. Martin Bauer’s supply chain, alone, spans 4 continents. Literally, chamomile is blossoming all around the world.

Chamomile has come a long way since ancient times and not just in terms of cultivation areas, but harvest methods too. Unsurprisingly, the first method of harvesting was hand harvesting. Finger picking, the most labor intensive harvest method, is only carried out on small stocks in most countries except in Egypt, where it is used almost exclusively. The picking rate of freshly harvested short-stemmed chamomile flowers is about 3-5 kg per hour. Somewhat higher picking yields were then achieved with so-called chamomile picking combs. They were used for harvesting cultivated fields in Hungary until the 1970s and are still used today for organized harvesting in wild populations. The picking rate of fresh flowers is about 50-150 kg per day. Throughout history, other methods included the use of special rakes or the comb shovels used in Hungary, which were swung through the chamomile stand like a scythe. Ultimately, such manual methods were not feasible for the production of large quantities. This was primarily due to the labor time requirements of about 25-30 working days per hectare. This problem had to be solved by the construction of mechanized harvesters.

Today, large scale commercial cultivation of chamomile in Germany and abroad uses chamomile picking machines, which pick the flower heads in the fields automatically and mechanically as a self-propelled machine, as a front carrier machine, or as a full harvester. These mechanical harvesting methods have a picking rate of 200-400 kg per hour and an area output of about 3.5 ha per day. These modern methods capture about 65-90% of all flowers, depending on climate and stand-specific conditions.

 

*American Botanical Council

Share:

Related posts

Tea assortment. Various kinds of tea in white bowl on the wooden rustic background. High quality photo

May 19, 2022

Happy International Tea-Day!

May 21 is a very special day for all tea lovers. The United Nations has declared it International Tea Day. We show the great variety with […]

Read more
April 20, 2022

Botanical Sweet Mixes

Consumers embrace healthy eating: as consumers become more intensely concerned with nutrition, they are also considering the impact food has on their physical and mental health, […]

Read more
March 7, 2022

The confidence to make a change

100 women in the Al-Fath region of Egypt are gaining financial independence by confidently exerting their entrepreneurial spirit. Nasamat El Qusy radiates enthusiasm when she speaks […]

Read more
Martin-Bauer-Footer-Logo
  • PR/News
  • Legal info
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms & conditions
  • Contact
  • Careers

Follow MartinBauer

Member of The-Nature-Network-Footer-Logo
© 2023 MartinBauer

    To operate our website technically functional and securely, our website uses cookies. If you declare your consent, we may use cookies also to optimize and ongoingly adjust our website to your needs, to offer social media functions and to analyze information on the access to our website. You may revoke your consent anytime. Further information my be obtained through our privacy statement. Settings

    Privacy Overview

    To operate our website technically functional and securely, our website uses cookies. If you declare your consent, we may use cookies also to optimize and ongoingly adjust our website to your needs, to offer social media functions and to analyze information on the access to our website. You may revoke your consent anytime. Further information my be obtained through our privacy statement.

    Strictly Necessary Cookies

    Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

    Cookies

    Name: moove_gdpr_popup

    Description: It saves preferences for cookie settings.

    Duration: 1 year

     

    3rd Party Cookies

    This website uses cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

    Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

     

    Cookies:

    LinkedIn

    Name: UserMatchHistory

    Description: LinkedIn Ads ID syncing 

    Duration: 30 days

     

    Name: bcookie

    Description: Browser Identifier cookie to uniquely identify devices accessing LinkedIn to detect abuse on the platform

    Duration: 2 years

     

    Name: lang

    Description: Used to remember a user's language setting to ensure LinkedIn.com displays in the language selected by the user in their settings.

    Duration: Session

     

    Name: lidc

    Description: To facilitate data center selection 

    Duration: 24 hours

     

    Name: li_gc

    Description: Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes

    Duration: 2 years

     

    Google Analytics

    Name: _ga

    Description: Used to distinguish users.

    Duration: 2 years

     

    Name: _gid

    Description: Used to distinguish users.

    Duration: 24 hours

     

    Name: _gat_gtag_UA_200342150_2

    Description: Used to throttle request rate. 

    Duration: 1 minute

     

    Name: _gat_gtag_UA_200342150_1

    Description: Used to throttle request rate. It comes from career page.

    Duration: 1 minute

     

    Name: _ga_VYHFCRQS9E

    Description: Used to persist session state. 

    Duration: 2 years

     

    Name: _ga_SZXYZ0VT0C

    Description: Used to persist session state. It comes from career page.

    Duration: 2 years

     

    e_tracker

    Name: et_coid

    Description: cookie recognition

    Duration: 2 years or configurable

     

    Name: BT_pdc

    Description: It contains Base64-encoded data of visitor’s history (is client, newsletter recipient, visitor ID, shown smart messages) for personalisation.

    Duration: 1 year

     

    Name: BT_sdc

    Description: It contains Base64-encoded data of visitor’s session (referrer, number of seconds from the beginning of session, shown smart messages in the session), that are used for personalisation purposes.

    Duration: Session

     

    Name: et_oi_v2

    Description: Opt-In cookie saves the decision of a user, whether on a page tracking Opt-in should conducted.

    Duration: 50 years for Opt-Out and 480 days for Opt-In

     

    Other

    Name: cookiesAvailable

    Description: To check whether 3rd party cookies on websites, that share same domain were already accepted

    Duration: Immediately deleted

     

    External content:

    YouTube 

     

    Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance