JAPANESE BITTER ORANGE

Somehow April has gotten away from me just as March did. After returning from San Francisco, spring quarter started, I had a big orchid show and sale last weekend, I’ve been trying to catch up on shipping orders out, I’ve got an orchid show and sale coming up in Portland in less than 2 weeks, and then there’s the Seattle Artisan Fragrance Salon the first week of May. I think I’ve mentioned before that it’s hard to get started back up blogging again after a hiatus, partly because I feel guilty about going for so long without a post and partly because I’ve skipped so much and can’t quite figure out where to begin again.

I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter where I begin, so will brag about the wonderful new plant that I found at the nursery where last weekend’s orchid show was held. It caught my eye as I was passing by on my way somewhere else. It was a small bonsai-like shrub or young tree with thick, convoluted branches, long thorns, no leaves, and small yellow flower buds everywhere. The trunk and branches were a beautiful green and silver striped pattern. I stopped to admire it, and discovered that it was something called Poncirus trifoliata ‘Flying Dragon’, also known as hardy bitter orange or Japanese bitter orange. During the two days of the show, I came back to visit it three or four times, and finally decided that it was coming home with me.

Flying Dragon is a dwarf cultivar, so probably won't grow to the height of a full-sized tree. It's now sitting on the back deck, waiting to decide whether it wants to be a bonsai or a garden tree. I’ve been reading a little about Poncirus trifoliata, also called trifoliate orange or Japanese bitter orange, which is native to China and Korea. It’s deciduous, and very hardy, reputedly growing successfully as far north as Boston. I don’t know why it’s not more commonly sold and grown here in the Pacific Northwest, where it seems we have the ideal climate for it. I learned that many commercial citrus trees are grafted onto Poncirus rootstocks, which are sturdier and more pest-resistant than those of commercial citrus trees. It sounds like a winner.

The flower buds that are just starting to open look like they’re going to be standard, white, citrus flowers. They’re supposed to be fragrant, so I’ll be checking every day to see how the fragrance develops. I’m looking forward to having a tree full of citrus blossoms that I can eventually harvest and use for enfleurage. The tree is also supposed to produce fruit, but that remains to be seen. It certainly has enough flowers to produce something!

[Top image is my photo of the plant in question; bottom two are different Poncirus trifoliata cultivars from Wikimedia]

A CHOCOLATE PERFUME TO MAKE YOU SMILE

One spin-off of the recent San Francisco Artisan Fragrance Salon, held in conjunction with a big chocolate show, was the challenge I set myself to make a chocolate-themed fragrance for the event. Let me say up front that I generally don’t like chocolate in perfume, and don’t like working with chocolate as a perfume note, either. Ready-mix synthetic chocolate accords smell cloying, and cacao absolute is a bitch to work with, given its tendency to separate out from other materials. My one previous attempt to use chocolate in a fragrance ended up with my disposing of the result and going in an entirely different direction. 

It was with some trepidation that I approached the task, but I do like challenges and didn’t want chocolate to get the best of me. I wanted to make something that was reminiscent of dark chocolate, but with a sunny, California twist, sort of like an orange liqueur cream filling. I started out with a yummy, not too sweet, dark cacao absolute, that I anchored with Bourbon vanilla and soft musk, and brightened with a little bit of patchouli.  The California citrus theme was represented by a mix of wild orange, grapefruit, neroli, yuzu, and white cognac notes.

It worked. The cacao somehow mysteriously merged into the mixture when I chilled and filtered it, resulting in a crystal-clear, luscious gourmand fragrance.

At the show, I featured five different fragrances in sniff glasses, one of which was California Chocolate. For those who aren’t familiar with this method of sampling, a sniff glass is a glass container, the inside of which has been sprayed with a fragrance. It is turned upside-down on a coaster or mat of some sort, keeping the fragrance trapped until it is lifted and sniffed. It works beautifully. One spray in the morning lasts all day. There’s no need for scent strips unless people want to take them with them to smell later.

As the day wore on, I became fascinated by people’s reactions when they smelled the California Chocolate sniff glass. For the other glasses there was a variety of reactions, from wrinkled noses and quick withdrawal to deep inhalations, to surprised or pleased looks. However, the reaction to California Chocolate was pretty much the same for everyone. They smiled!

When people pick up a sniff glass (or strip), they are always tentative, apparently bracing themselves for the worst. As they sniff, you can see the expression on their face evolve, and you know exactly what they’re thinking. California Chocolate evidently came as a pleasant surprise to everyone who smelled it. A lot of people laughed out loud when they discovered what it was. Everyone, without exception, smiled. I have never seen a perfume make so many people laugh before, with good, spontaneous laughs of surprise to find that the perfume fit the image of what it was supposed to represent. I don’t think they were even really aware of their reactions. California Chocolate was the best-seller of the day.

Each time I watched, it made me smile to know that I could make other people smile with something as simple as a fragrance. Bringing happiness to people, even for a moment, makes it all seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

[The bottom image is my photo of Yerba Buena Park in San Francisco, a place that makes me happy just to look at it.]