making scents of Oranges are not the only (fragrant) fruit…

From the blossoms draped over the wedding dress of … but can you tell your a young British Queen to an Italian princess who scented her gloves with the fragrant oil and gave rise to an entire from your industry, the – Citrus aurantium (also known as the Seville orange) – is surely one of the most generous flower or your petitgrain? trees in existence, offering up its flowers, leaves and twigs as prized aromatics for perfumes and ingredients for cooking, its sour fruit for the marmalade so beloved on our Suzy Nightingale set out to breakfast tables. This one tree has an astonishing bounty: orange solve the fragrant mystery blossom, orange flower water, neroli, bigarade and petitgrain are all extracted from this single source. But how of this indispensible does one differ from another – and how on earth do you tell the difference between them? ingredient, one of the To begin, let’s travel to Tunisia, where this beneficent tree now mostly flourishes, with just six villages in the Nabeul region providing the majority of the world’s crop. most beautifully versatile Originating from Asia, the bitter orange was introduced to by Crusaders of the 12th Century. A plants in perfumery particularly resistant species, it withstood whatever nature had to throw at it, burrowed its roots down and took hold. Across 400 hectares of these six villages – one hectare being roughly equivalent to a rugby pitch in size – the squat, densely verdant trees are planted in long avenues, with their dark, glossy leaves and waxy white blossoms a stark contrast to the pale, dusty soil on which they grow. With the subtle manipulations of skilled producers variously using water baths, hydro or steam distillation and enfleurage (pressing flowers in to odourless fat), the range of scents extracted vary from freshly aromatic through charmingly floral to the hip-swaying-ly, intoxicatingly provocative – an alchemist’s dream made reality for

28 The scented Letter Did you ever sleep in a field of orange-trees in bloom? The air which one inhales deliciously is a quintessence “ of perfumes. This powerful and sweet smell, as savoury as a sweetmeat, seems to penetrate one, to impregnate, to intoxicate, to induce languor, to bring about a dreamy and somnolent torpor. It is like opium prepared by fairy hands and not by chemists.

Guy de Maupassant are not the ” only (fragrant) fruit…

The scented Letter 25 making scents of citrus

Clockwise from top left: harvest-time in Tunisia; a young woman harvester; the tight buds of orange blossom; a morning’s harvest – generally around 10 kilos; the Princess of Nerola, after whom neroli is named; just-picked buds beginning to open

a whole cabinet of fragrant delights. of the warehouse is ankle-deep with a carpet of fragrant Women do most of the harvesting, the pickers swathed flowers waiting to be processed, filling the room with their in headscarves climbing treacherously high-looking ladders narcotic aroma like something from a fairy tale. to reach the very tops of the trees, typically working eight But how does one bud manage to produce neroli, hours a day and gathering around 20,000 (approximately orange blossom absolute and orange flower water? The 10kg) of flowers each per day. Patience is a virtue, for they magic is entirely dependent on the way they’re handled… must wait until exactly the right moment of maturity has When the blossoms are hydro-distilled – soaked in water been reached – at spring time when the the flower is still before being heated, with volatile materials carried away in bud form, miniscule grey dots just visible on the tightly- in the steam to condense and separate – the extracted furled petals showing reservoirs of . It’s that essential oil is called neroli, and the by-product water that’s precious material the perfumers are after. left is orange flower water. This is widely used around the As buds are tenderly plucked from the tree, the balmy world to flavour sweet pastries, as a fragrant hand rinse, air is filled with the heady fragrance of the trees and the to treat upset stomachs and as a beautifying facial toner. joyous ululations of the women as they drop the buds to Treated with solvents, these same flowers offer uporange sheets laid on the ground beneath them. From there, the blossom absolute. flowers are carefully sorted by hand to exclude the leaves, Just like roses and jasmine, orange blossom can be gathered into jute bags and carried to the collector’s office. solvent-extracted to produce what’s called a concrète. Harvesters come on foot or by truck, their harvest piled The extractor contains several levels of perforated trays, in carriages led by horses, in sacks tied to the back of bikes allowing solvent to circulate freely between them and or atop a donkey. The collector sits at a desk, carefully prevent the delicate buds being crushed and spoiled. watching the scales as each sack is weighed and the price When the solvent is poured in, the extractor is sealed and discussed; this varies daily depending on the availability of the solvent bathes the flowers for several hours – a little the flower and the current demand. By midnight, the floor like a washing machine. The liquid is then drained, placed

30 The scented Letter Best of the A sliding scale from decorous to decadent: the many fragrant faces of the bitter orange tree

Clarins Eau Dynamisante Freshly pressed white linen shirt worn open to the waist, golden skin gleaming.

Annick Goutal Néroli Les Colognes Glorious armfuls of blossoms thrown in joyous Will someone, celebration of the at the scent of bride’s long-sought “ happy ever after. orange blossom,

think of me Mizensir White when I too Neroli Succulent segments nibbled am a person of on sunny balcony overlooking verdant long ago? greenery and, somewhere beyond, the sea. Fujiwara no Shunzei (1104-1177) Diptyque L’Eau ” de Neroli Classy, grassy, a picnic in a concentrator and steam-heated until the solvent of marmalade evaporates. What’s left is a sticky, viscous residue known sandwiches proffered as the concrète – far darker in colour (and deeper in smell) to guests indulging even than the essential oil of neroli. in sophisticated Later this concrète will be shipped to Grasse, mixed flirtations. with alcohol and filtered to eliminate the waxes – but only when the alcohol has then evaporated are we left with the precious orange flower absolute. Tom Ford Neroli But wait. Because there are yet more uniquely scented Portifino Shiny, ingredients harvested from this same tree. Petitgrain happy people (‘little grain’) gets its name from the tiny, unripe fruits that holding hands at offer up a sharply green, spikily scented oil when they’re glam Ibiza after-party. cold-pressed. The leaves, twigs and branches of Citrus aurantium are also steam-distilled together to produce bigarade – sometimes referred to as ‘petitgrain bigarade’) Paul Schütze – which is widely considered to have a soothing, sedative Cirebon Burnished effect. It’s used by aromatherapists to calm anxieties and citrus blossoms prevent insomnia – and is also, of course, a key ingredient shimmer with an in many of the original Colognes (see p.11), which orchestra’s sound as have been delicately daubed for medicinal properties candles flicker and throughout the centuries. your heart melts. But how do they smell? Bright and light in character, neroli is generally used as a (fairly fleeting) top note.

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Maison Francis Kurkdjian APOM Femme A golden halo of comfort, sunshine diffused through honeycombs, your lover’s skin nuzzled.

Boucheron Neroli d’Ispahan Gilded light as the sunsets is most becoming to the ingénue wearing pearls, a charming smile and little else.

From top left: try to imagine the scent of the blooms, laid out in the orange Walden blossom warehouse; steam distillation; The Language of Flowers book Perfumes The Solid Earth The Perfume Society would like to thank LMR Naturals/International Flavors & Sheltering beneath Fragrances for permission to use their images of orange blossom production a canopy of trees, a downpour leads to laughter, hot kisses on drenched soil, You might think of it as smelling ‘citrusy’ – but this isn’t licentiousness. the eye-widening freshness of just-peeled oranges. You can’t even really call it ‘zesty’; when smelled in isolation, L’Artisan this delicious nectar is really quite complex. Yes, there’s a Parfumeur definite whiff of the fruit it originates from, but it’s sweet Séville à l’Aube and honeyed with a cool, metallic green facet that adds The molten wax a lightly-spiked sharpness to spicier undertones which of church candles emerge the longer you inhale. delicately dripped Orange blossom absolute, meanwhile, is heady and onto eager skin as indolic – most definitely an opulent heart note. Petitgrain virtue meets vixen. is ultra-green, quite bitter. And bigarade? The very essence of marmalade-iness. Describing the differences between the essences Serges Lutens the bitter orange tree can extract from a perfumer’s Fleur d’Oranger perspective, IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances) Sultry, sweaty perfumer Veronique Nyberg explains that ‘the orange and writhing flower epitomises the complexity of femininity. While the with unabashed absolute is sensual, warm and animalic, neroli oil is bright, decadence: a pure radiant, sparkling. Two facets of one flower, two aspects of heart gone awry, one woman.’ wreaking revenge. And if you’d ever wondered how neroli got its name, it started with a 17th Century Italian noblewoman, Marie- Marlou L’Animal Anne de la Trémoille Orsini, Princess of Nerola – a small Sauvage town near Rome. She used the oil to scent her gloves Disgracefully and bathwater. It became such a fashion among the debauched, snarling nobility aching to ape her stylish scent that the essence with feminine fury – was named neroli in her honour. Considered an iron fist you’ll long to stroke in scented gloves, Anne Marie wasn’t the only royal who her fur coat, but looked to the orange tree to lend its fragrance to the beware: she bites manifestation of her womanly wiles, however – see ‘The to kill. Blossom Queen’, right. But this Italian trendsetter took the exotic headiness of the blossom itself and enshrined it as a symbol of pure virtue, honour and chastity. But while the primly perfect buds might visually convey

32 The scented Letter The Blossom Queen

When Queen Victoria married her beloved Prince Albert on 10th February 1840, she chose only one flower for her wedding ensemble: orange blossom. She decorated her dress with sprigs of it, carried it in her bouquet and even wore a circlet of the blossoms fashioned from gold leaves, white porcelain flowers and green enamelled oranges in her hair. Long steeped in bridal mythology, and within the language of flowers carrying a meaning of ‘chastity’ and ‘betrothal’, Victoria cherished her love of orange blossom a sign of innocence, their heady scent can also bring a through the years, with Albert later man to his knees with longing. In his novel The Leopard, giving her a precious necklace, brooch Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa chronicles crossing an and earrings crafted to resemble orange grove in full flower, describing ‘…the nuptial scent delicate sprigs of her favourite flower, of the blossoms absorbed the rest as a full moon does a which she proudly wore for every landscape… that Islamic perfume evoking houris [beautiful wedding anniversary. When Victoria young women] and fleshly joys beyond the grave.’ elected to wear that one blossom to What a marvellous depiction of the animalic mark her marriage, she firmly planted naughtiness orange blossom absolute can evoke. In the fashion for blushing brides being this intense form, it’s a floral that veritably snarls with associated with orange blossom – a sensuality, similar to the narcotic warmth of jasmine and tradition that continues to this day. with something of tuberose’s potency – but none of that cold, grandiose standoffishness. With pure orange blossom, it’s all warm, come-hither sassiness that can verge on the medicinally camphoraceous in high quantities – and because of the laborious way it’s extracted, it is one of the most costly ingredients in perfumery. From fragrant tonic to becalm the skittish to a charming floral full of girlish glee, the bitter orange truly offers a scent for every mood. It can be a good luck charm and symbol of purity – or a salacious seducer who smacks her lips as she devours men’s souls. Maybe it wasn’t an apple tree Eve succumbed to in the The orange blossom jewellery given to Queen Victoria (above) by Prince Albert Garden of Eden, after all…

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