India’s ‘perfume capital’ has a long history of scent-making, but few have heard of it. Eighth-generation maker Pranav Kapoor has started a perfume tour in Kannauj, his hometown.
For centuries, perfumers in Kannauj have worked their alchemy to create “liquid gold.”
By Rachna Sachasinh
Published 18 Dec 2020, 21:08 GMT
A young woman plucks petals from a heap of roses at a sorting center in Kannauj, India. For more than 400 years, Kannauj artisans have been producing rose attar using the world’s oldest known perfume-making process.
Tegh Singh arrives at his flower farm on the banks of the Ganges before sunrise, ready to pluck rose petals when they are at their peak bouquet. Circling the dense and haphazardly planted
Rosa damascena shrubs, he works quickly, tossing the light pink petals into a jute sack slung over his shoulder. By the time the first rays of sunlight skim across the river, the 35-year-old Singh is already on his scooter, ferrying the sweet-smelling load inland to Kannauj, a small city known as “the perfume capital of India.”