A short piece from BBC News on traditional attar manufacturers in Northern India. Includes footage of steam distillation.
Update: video no longer available, sorry!
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When I think of India, I feel imaginary smells, all so good!
🙂
I hope the making of these attars does not disappear. I have some beautiful attars that were given to me by a friend from Saudi Arabia. There is nothing like these types of fragrances in modern perfumery.
The Indian sandalwood is already gone — wonder what they’re using?
I just think about how lucky we are to live in an age when we can still access these historic and other-continent products and also access news about their production on a Kindle tablet over breakfast. Lucky, lucky, 2012 us.
It’s so true!
Oh, but could you imagine being one of a very priviledged few dining at a long table in one of the period great houses of England, listening to descriptions of the process from newly returned visitors from India? After supper, sketchbooks depicting attar making, and even a few samples, might be passed around for the guests to enjoy.
Scents, and the thought of fragrances, always launch my imagination backward in time.