Rose products of Mewar: gulkand, sharbat and rose water

A plain guide to the rose products made in the Haldighati valley — gulkand, rose sharbat, paan sharbat and rose water — what each one is, and how to tell a good one.

The short answer

Mewar’s rose products are a small family: gulkand, a rose-petal preserve; rose sharbat, a syrup you dilute into a cold drink; rose water (gulab jal), the steam distillate of the petals; and, from the paan tradition, paan sharbat — also written pan sharbat. In the Haldighati valley all of them start from the same flower.

Where they come from: Haldighati and the Chaitri rose

Haldighati is a pass in the Aravalli hills of Mewar, near Udaipur in Rajasthan, named for its turmeric-yellow earth. The rose grown here is the Chaitri rose — Chaitri Gulab, a Damask rose (Rosa damascena) that flowers for a few weeks in the month of Chaitra each spring. Everything made from it in a year comes from those weeks. More on the Chaitri rose · What is Haldighati?

Gulkand

Gulkand is rose petals layered with sugar or mishri and left to mature into a dark, spoonable preserve. Traditionally there are two ingredients and nothing else. It is eaten by the spoon after meals, stirred into milk, and used as the sweet layer in paan. Our Rose Gulkand is rose petals and mishri; Kesar Elaichi Gulkand (kesar ilaichi gulkand) adds green cardamom and saffron. How gulkand is made

Rose sharbat

Rose sharbat — gulab sharbat — is a concentrate: about 30 ml in 200 ml of chilled water, soda or milk makes a glass. The bright pink of most shop-bought rose syrups is added colour; a sharbat made from rose water and mishri alone is clear. Clear Rose Sharbat · Five ways to serve it

Paan sharbat (pan sharbat)

Paan sharbat carries the taste of a meetha paan — betel leaf and sweetness — into a cold drink. Ours is paan extract and mishri syrup, diluted the same way as rose sharbat, and it also makes a good paan shake with cold milk. Paan Sharbat · Paan, explained

Rose water (gulab jal)

Real rose water is a hydrosol — the water that comes over when petals are steam-distilled — not water with rose flavouring added. A few drops go into kheer, lassi and biryani, and it is used on the skin as a toner. Rose Water · What steam distillation produces

How to tell a good rose product

Read the ingredient list first. Gulkand should be petals and sugar or mishri; rose sharbat, rose water or petals and sugar; rose water, the distillate alone. Added colour, “rose essence” or “nature-identical flavour” mean the rose is being imitated rather than used. Colour that varies a little from batch to batch is a good sign, not a bad one. Reading an Indian food label

Storing them

Keep all four in a cool, dark place with the lid or cap tight, and use a clean, dry spoon for gulkand. They do not need the fridge. More on storage

Buying from Haldighati

From Haldighati makes all five in the valley and delivers anywhere in India for a flat ₹39. See all rose products.