The enduring harvest of the ‘Tears of Chios’

The mastic growers of southern Chios go out to the trees in the early morning before the sun rises. 

In those mornings, the air is cool — fragrant with a piney, almost medicinal, smell.

The domesticated versions of wild Mediterranean shrubs are the world’s sole source of gum mastic — a clear resin that humans have used for at least 2,500 years. Today, some growers are trying to keep up that tradition.

To this day, the drops are still gathered by hand, now with the help of a headlamp.

“In the light, the mastic is glowing like diamonds!” gushed Poppy Voulgari, who has cultivated mastic trees with her husband, Nikos, for the last 12 years. 

In the middle of the afternoon, the sun beat down like a menace. As Nikos Voulgari demonstrated how he harvests mastic, it was quickly apparent that this industry couldn’t really be automated. That could be one reason why it hasn’t changed much over the last two centuries.

In poetry, the gum mastic drops are known as the “Tears of Chios.” This name refers to their outward appearance during the July harvest and an old story in which the Greek Orthodox Saint, Isidore of Chios, was killed by a Roman naval commander near the mastic trees. When he died, the story goes, the mastic “wept” fragrant tears.

After clearing the area below the shrub, Nikos covered the ground with white marble power in a circle around the base of the trunk. This creates a clean surface for the mastic drops. 

He then went in with a blunt, metal tool to cut into the bark. Nikos, an artist, has also created a more efficient, serrated knife for his work. He calls his creation a Greek translation of “The Embroiderer.”

Within minutes, clear drops of resin formed on the cuts.

“A mastic tree has veins, like a body,” Nikos said in Greek, as Poppy translated. “If you know where they are, you know where to cut.” 

The sticky, translucent sap oozed out and glistened in the sunlight — the same resin, once prescribed by Hippocrates for digestive problems and colds and the stuff the first photographers used to preserve early negatives. It was also the world’s first chewing gum, prized by the Ottoman imperial palace, and which still lends its chewiness to booza, an ice cream popular in the Levant.

It takes up to 20 days for the resin drops to harden on the ground. That’s when the Voulgaris gather the mastic. It’s then cleaned, processed and sold all over the world. 

Each mastic tree can only produce about a third of a pound of mastic every year, which is used in products like toothpaste, natural medicines and aromatic liqueurs. Botanists have struggled to recreate mastic production anywhere outside of the hot, dry microclimate of southern Chios. For some reason, the resin never flows with the same clarity and taste anywhere else.  

“The cultivation has remained traditional,” explained Maria Damala, sales director of the Gum Mastic Growers’ Association, a mandatory cooperative of mastic growers on Chios. 

Damala said one of her biggest challenges is getting more growers into the business.

“Actually, the production is not enough to capture the global demand,” she added. 

The Voulgaris joined the mastic trade in the wake of Greece’s 2009 debt crisis, when life in the capital, Athens, felt untenable, and they wanted to start a family.

“I wanted to raise my kids in a safe place,” Poppy Voulgari recalled. “So, we closed our store and we came to Pyrgi. We bought some mastic trees, and we became mastic producers.”

Time almost stands still in the hillside town of Pyrgi — a cluster of whitewashed stone homes etched with black-and-white geometric designs. Triangles are engraved on the homes for a long life, daisies are under the balcony for luck and pots of basil are on the windowsills to keep out mosquitoes.

It’s the largest of the 24 remaining “mastic villages” of southern Chios — fortified towns built during a Genoan occupation in the 14^th century. Many early residents carved their initials above their front doors, leaving a lasting signature.

At the café of Nikolaos Ioannis, visitors can taste pure mastic liqueur or try a Greek coffee flavored with mastic syrup.

Ioannis produces the syrup himself from mastic trees that he inherited from his family. 

“It’s sour, but it has vitamins and it’s good for the stomach,” Ioannis said.

Like his parents and grandparents before him, Ioannis works on his trees every morning. In the afternoons, he manages the café. His rhythm is dictated by the heat and a steady stream of mostly Turkish tourists who take the ferry to the island in the mornings.

Ioannis said his favorite part is caring for the baby mastic trees because he’s making something new for the next generation.

He smiled as he spoke about them, the same way he smiles when asked about his three kids. It takes about 15 years before a newly planted mastic shrub can produce a quality resin. But caring for them, making sure they’re established and happy, he said, brings him joy.