An Essential Story
EssènciesCat is a project driven by a passion for plants. It is an essential oil distillery and a Healing Arts Center, Rizoma, located in the picturesque region of the Empordà, in the northeast of Catalonia, where the foothills of the Pyrenees meet the sea.
EssènciesCat was founded in 2014 by Oriol Blanch and Frances Bartlett, a couple who met in 2008 while living in Barcelona. Oriol was a psychologist specializing in group therapy techniques based on spontaneous theater and psychodrama with adults and young people at risk of social exclusion. Frances was a cellist at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) and performed with contemporary dance companies internationally. When they met, Frances began working alongside Oriol, bringing her passion for art as a healing tool for communities and groups within his cultural association for spontaneous theater.
It was during Oriol’s master’s studies in Psychodrama in Buenos Aires in 2001 that the door opened to address psychological imbalances with plant-based natural products instead of prescribed medications. Over the next twenty years, he dedicated himself to studying and using infusions, tinctures, macerations, Mediterranean flower essences, essential oils, hydrosols, and, more recently, mushroom extracts (Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, and Reishi) in both his personal life and with his patients. He is a therapist who creates all the remedies he uses in his clinical practice to treat physical, psycho-emotional, and energetic imbalances such as depression, addictions, sleep disorders, skin issues, chronic and/or terminal illnesses, and to support both patients and their caregivers.
The EssènciesCat distillery was built in 2016 on a two-hectare plot of land on the outskirts of Pontós, in the Alt Empordà region.
The Healing Arts Center, Rizoma, was constructed in the same space as the distillery in 2022.
Essential Products
EssènciasCat is passionate about our community, health and culture: We believe that a profound sustainable working relationship with our environment and community creates better physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
It’s here, in the Alt Empordà region, a unique spot in the Mediterranean basin full of forests, scrubby hillsides, flowering verges and windy clifftops where we source such a wealth of aromatic plants.
Our products are 100% natural, 100% local, 100% organic and 100% hand crafted, containing all the plant’s properties that we need to treat our mental and physical health, balance and well-being.
Each step of the process is gently molded by our hands. We plant the seeds, transplant them, water and harvest our crops by hand. We harvest wild flowers by hand and when friends from neighboring farms clear their forests, we distill the leaves and branches from trees such as red and white pine. We carefully create our synergies, design our own labels, bottle our products and send them off directly from the distillery to you.
Meet our team
Our workers, producers of raw material and services are all contracted within our village of Pontós or neighboring area.
Mrs. Frances Bartlett
General Manager, Sales and Admin
Mr. Oriol Blanch
Distillery Manager and Psycho-aromatherapist (Psychologist and Group Therapist)
