It is a sweaty day in February, and Ellena is taking stock of his myriad inspirations, at the charming 25-acre Kumarakom Lake Resort on the shores of Vembanad Lake. All the rooms are cobbled out of the region’s 200-year-old teak cottages (tharavadu). His face is all nose, a tapered sensor whose nostrils tingle and flare with the same emotion that plays in most people’s eyebrows. They flare as he talks about the truffles in his freezer, procured in a furtive daylong transaction with all the drama of a drug deal.

— Columnist Phoebe Eaton of the New York Times describes perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena's journey to Kerala looking for inspiration for Hermès Un Jardin après la Mousson. Read more in Liquid Assets.