Emerald

The emerald mines at Sikait, in the Eastern Desert, are the oldest worked emerald deposits on earth Cleopatra's mines, still standing as cut galleries in the rock.

Emerald is the green in the range, and it is green in the difficult sense: galbanum and fig leaf at the top, sharp and almost bitter, softened only slowly by green cardamom and orris. Vetiver, moss, and cedar close it. Nothing here is sweet, and nothing here is trying to be.