Mastic

Mastic — Mastiha in Greek — is the dried resin exuded from the slashed bark of Pistacia lentiscus var. chia, a shrub in the Anacardiaceae family cultivated only on the southern half of the island of Chios, in the Aegean. The European Union granted Mastiha PDO status in 1997, restricting the name to resin harvested in 24 villages of the Mastichochoria region. The chemistry is dominated by alpha-pinene, beta-myrcene and the triterpenic acids known collectively as mastic acids, with a minor but distinctive note of methyl-iso-eugenol. Global output sits around 200 tonnes per year, every gram tracked by the Chios Mastiha Growers Association cooperative. The resin is chewed as gum — the English word mastication comes directly from mastichein, to chew — and used in Greek spoon sweets and the liqueur Mastiha, in Turkish dondurma ice cream for its signature stretch, in Lebanese white coffee (ahweh bayda), in Moroccan pastry, and in Byzantine-descended church incense.