Worldwide Essential Oil Expertise!
One of Young Living’s beautiful peppermint fields on a summer day at the Mona, Utah, farm.
What is the condition of the soil? Can you grow lavender in soil that’s 5.5 pH? Can you transplant frereana frankincense and grow it in Oman? Can you grow ylang ylang in Idaho? The answers are, “yes.” You can grow just about anything anywhere. However, it doesn’t mean that the plant is going to produce an essential oil or a therapeutic-grade essential oil.
Another factor I discovered that is really interesting science is that there is a big difference in the plants and oil production on longitude north and south, 80 degrees west compared to longitude north and south, 45 degrees east. This science is becoming very fascinating. Latitude east and west, 15 degrees south is different from latitude east and west, zero degrees, which is Ecuador—the equator. Tropic of Cancer, north of the 45th parallel versus Tropic of Cancer, south of the 45th parallel. These all create differences in the plants and oil production.
So where does the 45th parallel run? Just north of the Utah border about a hundred miles. Every peppermint grower who grows north of the 45th parallel has to harvest at a different time, and they’re also at a different elevation if they want to produce menthol. Below the 45th parallel, at a higher elevation, you cut the plant and distill at a different time to get a higher menthol level. I was the first in the world to discover this. Why? Because of distilling every day for weeks at a time to identify when the oil is the best.
We’re not just doing a little research about a few things; I’m researching every faction of your oil to find where the best is produced—and I will not quit. This factor was not taken into the equation until I started distilling in ten different states and countries: Washington, Idaho, Utah, France, Ecuador, Peru, Oman, Egypt, Taiwan, and Israel—all places where I have actually conducted distillation myself. I’ve distilled in more countries than probably any 100 people combined in the world today. North of the Tropic of Cancer, north of the 45th parallel is Washington; Idaho is south of the 45th parallel; Utah is south. It changes the chemistry of the plant. Why? Part of it is because of elevation variation, but part of it is because of the angle of the UV rays. Doesn’t that make sense?
