Japanese Scent

Melody in wood

I still remember my first trip to Kyoto. It was in July. One day, while some scattered rains washed the trees and refreshed the airs with a soft wind, I entered the walls of Nanzenji, one of Kyoto’s famous temples.

The great gate and its darkened wood pillars exhaled a perfume close to incense and moss. A top note, sparkling and emotional, came from nose to eyelashes like tears of joy. Then an earthy wave, the middle note, fresh and light like a breeze among the oaks. And finally, for the base note, a deep blow of sliced wood, low and rich, rough on the palate and caressing on the nose.

I never forgot that perfume of Nanzenji. To me, it is typical of central Japan. I think I mentioned it a lot before. I had to, eventually, give it a proper homage.

The missing history of perfumes

Tanizaki said that Japanese aesthetic plays on shadows to suggest things rather than to show them. I never read anything about the smells of Japan. Yet, more so than shadows, scents have their ways to inspire and suggest.

At most, I read in Kawabata that « perfumes from Western countries strongly evoke the world. » And that is true. Maybe because the European art of perfume had the body as a medium. It is to decorate the flesh, hide its imperfections and magnify it that European perfumes were born. It is an art that works on human aura more than on heavenly atmospheres like incense does.

In Japan, especially in tea ceremony, it is not appreciated to wear a perfume. It is a sign of egocentrism, to begin with, but it also changes the taste of tea and the smell of the incense. Of course, it also inhibit, for oneself or for others, the delicate fragrance of the garden and dishes. To wear a perfume is to be an artwork and to refuse that status to other artworks around us.

Memory in clay

Some weeks ago, I had the pleasure to serve tea in a tea bowl made by Sasaki-sensei. As the hot water fell into the bowl, the glaze woke up and I could feel, coming up to me, the specific scent of my master’s tea bowls, the soft camphor and stingy fragrance of a burnt soil. Sasaki’s tea bowls react to water with an inside fire.

That scent reminded me of my room, in Paris, where I encountered it each time I served in the tea bowl that my master made for me. I could not prevent a smile as I met again an old friend, a wave of memories and a house in the ether.

Some days later, I met Sasaki-sensei and he offered me tea in a tea bowl made by his grand father. He apologized in advance for the moisture smell that the tea bowl had, saying it could be disagreeable. Indeed, the piece had a very strong smell, quite different from the current heir’s tea bowls. It certainly bothered a bit by its lack a discretion, but it was quite a nice fragrance. At last, when I had finished drinking and the remaining matcha had dried, I plunged my nose into the bowl and I thought I could recognize the scent. The tea bowl smelled like the darkened wood pillars of the great gate in Nanzenji.