Caraway Oil

#### Caraway Oil. This oil is steam distilled from the dried, crushed, ripe fruit of **Carum**** ****Carvi**, a small herb which grows wild in Asia, Europe, North Africa and in the northwestern United States. The plant is cultivated in Holland, Denmark, Poland, USSR, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Germany, England, Spain, Tunisia, India, and Pakistan. The four first-named countries are main suppliers of the fruits; Holland is the largest producer of the essential oil. The annual production in Holland may exceed 40 metric tons. Other countries supply smaller quantities, and the Dutch oil is considered superior, although the scarce English distilled oil (partly from foreign fruits) is also of high flavor quality. **Caraway**** ****Oil**** **is offered on the market in at least two grades: - "crude" or "natural" caraway oil—and - "double rectified" or "redistilled" caraway oil. Crude caraway oil is the direct distillate. It is a pale yellow to brownish, mobile liquid, possessing a strong and peculiar odor typical of the fruit, but with a fatty-harsh undertone. The taste is similar, but quite burning, warm, biting. Rectified caraway oil is colorless or very pale yellow. The odor is stronger, less fatty. The flavor is warmer, less sweet and more biting than that of the crude (natural) oil. When presenting a "blind" sample of caraway oil to an odor panel, one may often hear that "it smells of rye bread". This is another example of the difficulties one faces in logical odor description. Rye bread is flavored with caraway oil (or with other carvone-containing flavor material). To the same panel was shown with several weeks interval first a "blind" sample of Carvone, later one of spearmint oil. In all three cases, the description "rye bread" came up as the most frequently used by the panel. Characteristic of crude caraway oil is an initial note of a nauseating, almost amine-like type. This note is found in a number of "seed"-oils, particularly those from the family of umbelliferae (caraway, carrot, celery, coriander, fennel, etc.), and the unpleasant note may be due either to decomposition of proteins in the germ of the seed, or to the presence of glycosides or alkaloids. Black pepper oil presents an ammoniacal odor when fresh out of the still, conceivably a decomposition product from the nitrogen components of the fruit. The above odor is not present in redistilled (rectified) caraway oils. See also **Cumin**** ****Oil** **Caraway Oil **is used primarily in flavors: in bread, cheese, meat, pickles, sauces, and seasonings. It is the main flavor ingredient in the Scandinavian "snaps" ( a caraway-brandy), or the German "kümmel". It is used in mouth wash or gargle preparations, toothpaste flavors, chewing gum, candy, and as a masking agent in bad- tasting pharmaceutical preparations. Combinations with cinnamon or cassia oils are frequently encountered. The suggested use level of rectified caraway oil is about 2.00 to 5.00 mg% and the **Minimum**** ****Perceptible **is 0.30 to 0.50 mg%. In perfumery, the use of caraway oil is restricted to soap perfumes where it is often combined with cassia oil or similar notes. Minute quantities of caraway oil may be used in jasmin bases, tabac perfumes, etc. Caraway oil has a pronounced odor-masking effect upon some of the most common insecticidal chemicals and has occasionally been used for the purpose of covering the obnoxious odor of the active principles. Since the main constituents of caraway oil, **Carvone **and **Limonene **(both in the dextro-rotatory form) are available as synthetic chemicals, the use of caraway oil has been decreasing considerably during recent years. Apart from the two materials mentioned, however, trace amounts of other ingredients actually decide the characteristic odor of true caraway oil. It is interesting to note that spearmint oil also consists mainly of carvone and terpenes (in laevo-rotatory form), but the "traces" of odor-flavor materials which characterize the typical spearmint odor and flavor are more than mere traces (several percent of certain materials). An olfactory analysis of caraway oil will usually reveal any substantial adulteration. In the crude oil, sulfide compounds often occur naturally, causing a putrid odor, but these notes soon disappear completely on ageing or after rectification. A similar odor is noted in true cumin oil (see monograph). Such observations may help in the evaluation of samples of caraway oil. It is believed that the sulfides should only exist in the distillation waters from the oil, not in the oil itself. Most distillers cohobate the distillation water, others extract the water with volatile solvent in order to recover this special fraction of the crude caraway oil. Adulteration takes place on an increasing scale with synthetic d-carvone and d-limonene, particularly since the former is now produced at a competitive cost (see also **Spearmint Oil).**** **Adulteration can also take place with **Caraway**** ****Chaff**** ****Oil,**** **distilled from the waste material from the threshing of the caraway fruits. This oil contains more terpenes and less carvone; it is of poorer grade than true caraway fruit oil