Choe Tung Gwang, director of the Essential Oil Institute of the Pyongyang Essential Oil Factory, had a penchant for chemistry in his childhood.

His dream was realized only after he returned to his homeland from Japan in August 1960.

Bridegroom disappears from wedding hall

When he was studying at the Faculty of Chemistry of Kim Il Sung University in the early 1970s as he wished, other students were no match for him in desire for learning.

He was even nicknamed “walking dictionary.”

He distinguished himself in an important research team in his university days. After graduation, he worked at a unit and brought about two valuable sci-tech achievements conducive to the economic development of the country.

There is an anecdote telling how much he exerted himself to bring about the two sci-tech achievements though he was not a professional researcher.

On February 8 1980, the research to develop new technology to increase hardness with low-MPa cement entered a full-scale phase, and it was his wedding day.

But the bridegroom, who had sat at the wedding table amid the blessings of many people, quietly left the venue without telling the bride. Then he did not appear for hours. When the bride was at a loss alone at the wedding table, he was in a laboratory, waiting anxiously for the result of the analysis of his research.

His successful research finding was introduced into a major construction project in the country and the cement dispersant-519, which made it possible to save a large quantity of cement, was registered as his first national invention.

Pioneer of research into natural essential oil

It was at the beginning of 1984 that Choe buckled down to research into natural essential oil of his own accord.

It was because the development of natural essential oil took a large share in developing the country’s light industry.

When he was about to start the research, he came to know that there were many problems to solve.

The existing reference documents related to the research were old ones written in the early 1900s, and even if the method was adopted, there was no possibility of making natural essential oil.

The research was as good as walking along an untrodden path.

He travelled different places across the country to select raw materials for natural essential oil. Then one day he was attracted by sweet briar in bloom on a beach at the East Sea of Korea.

Charmed by the fragrance from the flower, he made up his mind to obtain essential oil from it, but it took much labour and money to extract 1kg of essential oil from the flower under laboratory conditions.

Looking back upon the days when his research was just like creating something from nothing, his wife Kim Sun Hui said, “I felt ashamed of my husband whenever hundreds of experiments failed repeatedly. So I tried to dissuade him from clinging to a thing that would be impossible even if he sold all their family property for it, entreating that we live as comfortably as others. But he said that he could never discontinue the research halfway.”

At last, Choe succeeded in extracting absolute oil from the flower.

It is said that different countries still order sweet briar absolute oil from the DPRK.

Later, he developed in succession natural essential oils including Chongsong perfume that can be said to a world-level one representing the country, Pinus pumila, calamus, Perilla frutescens crispa and mint essential oils, making a great contribution to the development of the country’s food and cosmetics industries.

Choe Tung Gwang, Merited Scientist, candidate academician, professor and PhD, is still putting his heart and soul into developing a new natural essential oil though he is now 73 years old.