Centuries-old sesame mill grinding on in Kurdish village

For hundreds of years people in the city of Amedi in the Kurdistan Region have been making tahini, a special paste from sesame seeds.

 

The seeds are ground to powder in a grinder that has been reeling for centuries.

 

Suliman Hussein Omer, tahini producer: "There is no electricity involved in our work. We don't use electricity, except for lighting. We are operating on waterpower. We use a sieve to clean the product. After that, a wooden hammer will break the seeds. Then it will be put in the grinder which works on waterpower. There is no electricity, and the oven is being heated by burning wood. Our sesame seeds are being roasted on burned woods, as you can see."

 

A burning pile of logs outside the mill keeps the furnace going. It roasts the sesame seeds for 40 minutes.

 

After cooling off they are brought to the grinder. The tahini then comes out under the grinder and is collected in cans.

 

The finished tahini product is packed in 1-kilogram plastic bottles. The grinder produces about 300 kilos of tahini per day.