Patent ID: 7576049

Claim:
A method for extracting aroma components from plant materials which comprises immersing a plant material containing aroma components and selected from the group consisting of fruits, berries, flowers, leaves, stems, twigs, bark, wood, buds, seeds, roots, and pods in a volatile ester for a period of time of less than 30 minutes to achieve transfer of aroma components from the plant material to the ester, separating the ester containing aroma components from the plant material, and evaporating the ester to produce a concrete fraction containing waxes and aroma components; subjecting the concrete to at least one alcohol wash, in which the alcohol is ethanol, chilling the wash to separate an alcohol soluble fraction containing aroma components from a wax fraction, isolating the wax fraction from the alcohol soluble fraction, and evaporating the ethanol alcohol from the alcohol soluble fraction to produce an absolute fraction.