Mastic (plant resin)

• 1. Introduction

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  Mastic is a resin that, during Ottoman rule of the island of Chios, was worth its weight in gold. It comes from Pistacia lentiscus, an evergreen shrub whose resin glands release droplets that dry into brittle, translucent pieces. People call them the tears of Chios. Put one in your mouth and the transformation begins. The piece softens, turns bright white and opaque, and the taste moves from bitter to something refreshing, like pine and cedar. Behind this small, odd crystal sits a long list of questions. How do growers coax it out of a shrub, and why did villages build walls to guard it? Which empires fought to control it, and who runs the trade today? And what does a modern medicines regulator make of a remedy that people have trusted for centuries?

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• 2. A Year of Tears

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  The harvest is called kentos, and it runs from the beginning of July to the beginning of October. Before any cutting starts, growers clear the ground around each tree and sprinkle it with inert calcium carbonate. Then, every 4-5 days, they make 5-10 incisions in the bark of every tree. Resin seeps from the cuts and hangs in clear drops that sparkle in the sunlight. That sparkle explains the name, since the drops look like crystalline teardrops. The first crystals need about 15-20 days to harden and fall to the ground. The farmers gather the dry pieces and wash them in natural spring water. Most of the winter goes to cleaning, as they separate the tears from the sand by hand. A legislative framework set by the Mastic Growers' Association regulates this slow work. Alongside the resin, the growers also produce mastic oil.

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• 3. Empires and Their Resin

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  Chios mastic has served as a traditional medicine for the last 2,500 years. The word itself comes indirectly from the Greek μαστίχη, which may be related to μασᾶσθαι. The first mention of actual mastic tears comes from Hippocrates. He used the resin to prevent digestive problems and colds, and to freshen breath. The Romans found a different use. They stirred mastic into conditum paradoxum, a spiced wine made with honey, pepper, and egg. Power eventually took an interest in the resin. Under the Byzantine Empire, the mastic trade became the Emperor's monopoly. Ottoman rulers kept the same habit, and the Sultan gathered the finest crop for himself. The Turkish name for Chios still carries the legacy. Sakız Adası means gum island.

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• 4. Villages Without Doors

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  The mastic villages of Chios were built like fortresses. They sit out of sight from the sea, ringed by high walls. At street level they have no doors at all, so visitors once entered only by ladder. The purpose was to protect the precious sap. Today there are twenty-four of these mastichochoria, as of 2024, all dedicated to growing and producing mastic. Nature has threatened them more recently than any raider. In August 2012, a forest fire on Chios destroyed some of the mastic groves. The name of the product is now guarded by law too. The designation Masticha Chiou, or Khios mastic, is protected by a European Union protected designation of origin.

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• 5. The Growers' Cooperative

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  A single organisation stands behind the island's mastic. Founded in 1938, the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Association, abbreviated CGMGA, is a secondary cooperative. It speaks for twenty primary cooperatives, which were founded across the twenty-four mastic villages. It holds exclusive management of natural Chios Masticha in Greece and abroad. Visitors can see the story laid out at the Chios Mastic Museum. Its permanent exhibition explains the history and the cultivation techniques, and it shows the different uses of mastic today. Across the water, a smaller story is unfolding. Mastic has traditionally been produced in limited amounts on the Çeşme peninsula, on the Turkish coast eight nautical miles from Chios. The conditions there are ecologically similar. A Turkish foundation called TEMA, which works on soil erosion, reforestation, and habitat protection, set out to revive commercial production. Between 2008 and October 2011, it planted over 3,000 saplings on 368 acres, or 149 hectares. The Izmir Institute of Technology provided the land, and the project was expected to last through 2016.

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• 6. Kitchen and Altar

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  In Turkey, mastic turns up in Turkish delight and dondurma, and in puddings such as sütlaç, muhallebi, and tavuk göğsü. On the Aegean coast, mastic syrup is added to Turkish coffee. In the Levant, cooks add it to booza, the local ice cream. Greek kitchens use it in breads, cheese, chewing gum, and a spoon sweet nicknamed the submarine, or υποβρύχιο. It also stabilises loukoumi and ice cream. The Maghreb favours cakes and pastries, and cooks there use mastic to stabilise meringue and nougat. In Morocco it helps prepare smoked foods. The liqueur Mastika, also called Mastichato, is much younger than the resin, yet it ties into Greek history. Grape-based digestive liqueurs of a similar kind were known as Greek elixirs before the French Revolution. Mastic also appears in religion. Eastern Orthodox Churches count it as an essential ingredient of chrism, the holy oil used for anointing. Some scholars link it to bakha, a plant named in the Bible. The word seems to derive from the Hebrew for weeping, which would fit the resin's tears. An ancient Jewish source rules on chewing it on Shabbat. Chewing is forbidden when the aim is medicinal, but permitted for bad breath. Today the colloquial Hebrew word for chewing gum is מסטיק, which is mastic.

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• 7. Weighing the Evidence

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  In February 2016, the European Medicines Agency published its final assessment of Pistacia lentiscus resin. The verdict had two sides. The clinical studies were numerous, but too small and methodologically weak to earn a well-established use designation. Most of them looked at oral use as a sole agent, or at skin applications combined with other products. Yet none of them raised significant safety concerns. The agency also pointed to a long record in traditional and folk medicine, spanning more than 30 years in countries including Iraq, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Greece stood out within the European Union. Laboratory studies outside the body showed antimicrobial activity, and the resin worked particularly well against Helicobacter pylori. On that basis, the agency approved powdered mastic as a traditional herbal medicinal product for two purposes. One is the treatment of mild dyspeptic disorders in adults and the elderly. The other is the symptomatic treatment of minor skin inflammations and help with healing minor wounds. Because the data were thin, the agency advised against use in children, during pregnancy, and during lactation.

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• 8. Varnish, Perfume and Incense

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  Photographers once relied on mastic to protect their negatives. Mastic varnish preserved them, and the resin is still used in some varnishes. Ancient Egypt put it to work in embalming. Perfumers describe its aroma with a string of words: balsamic, terpenic, green, spicy, juniper, and woody. Cosmetics makers add it to soap, body oils, and body lotion. In hardened form it can also make incense, much as frankincense or Boswellia resin does. One of its earliest uses was simply as chewing gum, and the same tears now scent the products of the perfume trade.

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