If you can arrange your visit to Chios for late July or August, you may witness one of the most extraordinary agricultural rituals in the world: the mastic harvest. For over 2,500 years, in the 24 Mastichochoria villages of southern Chios, farmers have been coaxing resin from the gnarled mastic trees using techniques virtually unchanged since antiquity.
The process begins weeks before the harvest. Farmers clean the ground beneath each tree and lay white limestone powder — calcium carbonate — in a wide circle around the trunk. This creates a clean white surface on which the tears of resin can fall and be collected without contamination. Then, using a pointed tool called a kentitiri, they make dozens of small incisions in the bark of the tree. The tree responds by weeping — releasing its precious resin in small teardrop-shaped beads that slowly crystallize in the summer heat.
By August, the trees are weeping steadily, and the harvest begins. Families work in the intense heat, moving from tree to tree, carefully collecting the hardened crystals from the white ground. It is slow, painstaking work — a single tree produces only 150-180 grams of mastic per season. The crystals are then cleaned by hand, sorted by size, and delivered to the cooperative of mastic producers, which markets the product worldwide under the Chios Mastiha brand.
Several of the Mastichochoria villages offer harvest tours and tastings during this period. The Mastic Museum in Emporio provides an excellent introduction to the history and science of mastic production.