NOTICE: Our essential oils workshop is suspended indefinitely.
You are welcome to join us and live the experience of capturing the therapeutic power of Ikarian nature. We offer an experience of around 4 hours during which we collect and distill the herb of the season, while learning everything about the process and even more!
In detail, the workshop’s programme is as follows:
We meet at Ag. Dimitrios, Ikaria and we walk a short path of 1.3km down to our distillery. Along the way we spend some time identifying the herbs in their natural environment and discuss their properties. We also observe and explain how Ikaria’s bio-system functions.
Upon reaching our distillery you’ll be welcomed with some herbal tea from our garden and some snacks. We then go deep into explaining how to collect herbs in a sustainable way, as a renewable resource. After that it’s hands on! We pick up the scythes and hike to a nearby area where the herb of the season is in optimum condition to be picked. Following the rules of sustainability and quality we discussed previously, everyone gets to immerse themselves in this meditative experience. Picking usually lasts about half an hour and hats, long trousers and closed shoes are recommended.
We then return to the laboratory and start the process of distillation. Everyone helps to load the distiller the proper way, with the herbs that we picked. We then fire it up! While waiting for the distillation process to start going we move to the area of our second distiller and explain in detail how the process works and all details involved in capturing high quality essential oils.
After that it’s time for tea and snacks again while sampling the full range of the essential oils and hydrosols we produce. For each one of them we talk extensively about its properties and the ways it can be used. During this time, we will start to see the magic happening as the distillation we put on will have started producing essential oil and hydrosol. We explain the proper ways to receive, filter and store the products of the distillation.
Then it is chill out time, when everyone can explore our distillery, our products and ask away any curiosity they may have. We continue our discussion while walking up the path to the original meeting point before parting ways.
Our season starts at the end of March and continues until the beginning of October. Depending on the conditions, in March, April and May we distill Lavender, Sage, Rosemary, Rose Geranium. In June it’s Savory, Helicrysum, Oregano, Eucalyptus. In July there’s Thyme and Peppermint. August has Wild Carrot, Vitex and Mytrle. September and October is time for Rock Samphire and Fennel.
Contact us to learn how you can book our workshop. You can also check out our page on TripAdvisor.
- HollyG
From the beginning and the walk around the woods explaining all the herbs, to the distillation process, to the wonderful hosts, Thodoris and Tara, I highly recommend the workshop to 
01/07/2021
