In Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo, there is the city of Nikko - the name is translated from Japanese as "sunshine". In addition to its name, it is notable for its coat of arms - a golden flower with a red heart, as well as the famous and old, like everything famous in Japan, cedar alley. Nikko lies in a valley formed by mountains generous in gifts: some rare eagles soar over one, in the other there is a cave with an echo that tickles the nerves pleasantly. But the most famous is Ko-Maruyama. In summer, its slope is covered with yellow daylilies, and on top of them - a dense, wet haze. Climbing the loam is difficult: the boots are parting, the hands slide over the wet stems, and a cold suspension seeps into the bosom. And all the same they climb the mountain - for the moments when the mountain sun extracts yellow glossy flowers from the fog, and all the rest, when you go somewhere indiscriminately in a fragrant,protected shroud.
Daylily © Makoto / istockphoto.com
The scent of Ko-Maruyama daylilies is the 21st item on a list I found the other day: "Japan's top 100 scents" are posted as a modest table on the Japan Environment Ministry's website. The list was released back in 2001, but it was never translated into Russian or English - a big omission for sniffing tourists. I decided to fix it (in case of an unlikely move to Tokyo) and after a few hours of correspondence with Google Translate, during which we coldly tested each other for strength, I received the best guide to Japan from the existing ones - without the mandatory views of Fuji, but with flowering fields. the ebb and flow and sulphurous stench of hot springs. The list is a little sad: it contains a country that no longer exists.
Antique, almost museum crafts, which gained historical value, but lost industrial value. Green islands in the middle of factory districts. Cities from which tourism left after Fukushima. For example, point 17: Sukagawa's peony bonfires. There is a peony garden in the city, founded 250 years ago - seven thousand bushes that bloom from mid-April to late May. Then, as always happens with peonies, the magic suddenly ends: white and burgundy silk turns into brown dust in a day. But in Sukagawa, she gets a second life - the flower dead wood is raked into huge heaps and set on fire, and the tart smell of dry peonies floats over the city all night long. Unfortunately, in 2011, Sukagawa was badly hit by an earthquake and tsunami: after the dam broke, water rushed into residential areas, killing people. In the soil samples, radiation is still increased - only 60 km away from Fukushima Sukagawa.
Peony © nicodemos / istockphoto.com
We still know very little about the Japanese - despite a long-standing fascination with Japanese literature and visa concessions introduced by the Japanese to Russians last year. This list, for example, came as a complete surprise to me: most often it contains not some sakura (cherry blossom, by the way, almost does not smell of anything), but sulfur and the "smell of tide" - each four times. I'm trying to figure it out: the onsen culture - as the hot mineral springs and the accompanying infrastructure are called - is very important, because it echoes the national idea of purity, physical and spiritual. While the main religion in Japan was Shinto, a great many sanctuaries on the water were built here: the priests had daily ablutions. Which explains the special thoroughness of the obligatory cleansing before the swim - first you get wet in a cypress barrel o-furo, then you take off yourself,like a radish, seven skins with a stiff brush and at the end you take a shower. There are more than three thousand thermal springs in Japan, from which a mile away smells of sulfur; the struggle for four places on the ministerial list must have been serious. Now about the "scent of the tide": what exactly do the Japanese mean? In the seventh point it is a pine haze mixed with the smell of sea water on the famous Yodogahama beach, in the 90th - the sea and daffodils in a quiet area of Nagasaki, in the 51st - the salty spirit of oyster farms in the fishing town of Toba. Food, by the way, takes up almost a quarter of the fragrant hundred, which is not surprising: in 2013, Japanese cuisine - everything, like a phenomenon - was included in the list of cultural heritagethe struggle for four places on the ministerial list was serious. Now about the "scent of the tide": what exactly do the Japanese mean? In the seventh point, it is a pine haze mixed with the smell of sea water on the famous Yodogahama Beach, in the 90th - the sea and daffodils in a quiet area of Nagasaki, in the 51st - the salty spirit of oyster farms in the fishing town of Toba. Food, by the way, takes up almost a quarter of the fragrant hundred, which is not surprising: in 2013, Japanese cuisine - everything, like a phenomenon - was included in the list of cultural heritagethe struggle for four places on the ministerial list was serious. Now about the "scent of the tide": what exactly do the Japanese mean? In the seventh point it is a pine haze mixed with the smell of sea water on the famous Yodogahama beach, in the 90th - the sea and daffodils in a quiet area of Nagasaki, in the 51st - the salty spirit of oyster farms in the fishing town of Toba. Food, by the way, takes up almost a quarter of the fragrant hundred, which is not surprising: in 2013, Japanese cuisine - everything, like a phenomenon - was included in the list of cultural heritagetakes up almost a quarter of the fragrant hundred, which is not surprising: in 2013, Japanese cuisine - all as a phenomenon - was included in the list of cultural heritagetakes up almost a quarter of the fragrant hundred, which is not surprising: in 2013, Japanese cuisine - all as a phenomenon - was included in the list of cultural heritage UNESCO.
Roasted chestnuts © Seungchan Lee / istockphoto.com
The most fragrant food in Japan, according to a hundred, should be considered fried chestnuts, tsukemono pickles - ginger, wasabi, plums and chrysanthemum flowers, black noodles from Yamagata Prefecture, where, as the Japanese believe, water is very tasty and proper for cooking, and pickled leaves cherry, which is wrapped in traditional sakura-mochi rice sweets. The famous Hamamatsu eel was also included in the list. To cut it, the Japanese came up with a special knife several hundred years ago: there are so many thin bones in the fish that it is impossible to get them all, so Japanese chefs cut it into petals no thicker than one millimeter - along with the bones. “An excellent list,” commented a Japanese friend to whom I told about the fragrant hundred, “Except that a few important things are missing. How could they not include yuzu? Where did the bamboo groves go? And the smell of new tatami? " Flowers, delicacies and Japanese household items fell from Hideo, as if from a cornucopia - in five minutes there were half a new hundred of them. “On the other hand, they know better,” he stammered: like most Japanese, Hideo respected hierarchy. And therefore, he delicately noted that the last, hundredth item on the list - the scent of the blossoming island of Taketomi - is in no way inferior to the honorable item number one - the lavender fields of Furano.the hundredth item on the list - the scent of the blossoming island of Taketomi - is in no way inferior to the honorable item number one - the lavender fields of Furano.the hundredth item on the list - the scent of the blossoming island of Taketomi - is in no way inferior to the honorable item number one - the lavender fields of Furano.
The best fragrances dedicated to Japan:
© press service
1 | Nightingale, Zoologist Perfumes
A magnificent chypre, collected by the Japanese perfume journalist and novice "nose" Tomoo Inaba: there is light in the aroma - bergamot, lemon, plum blossom - and the darkness loved by the head nightingales - saffron, oud, chocolate patchouli.
2 | Panorama, Olfactive Studio
We are misleading here: Panorama is a tribute to the famous Los Angeles house of Sheets-Goldstein, which many will remember for his brilliant cameo in The Big Lebowski. But the main chord of Panorama - wasabi with bamboo and pungent greens of galbanum - sounds completely Japanese.
3 | Cricket Song, Floraïku
A new brand, well-known authors - the founders of Memo Paris Clara and John Molloy. The design of the bottles, as always with this pair, is fantastic, but the fragrances themselves are also good: for example, "Song of the Cricket" is a wonderful night magnolia with spicy greens and a vanilla ray of the moon.
4 | Kyoto, Comme des Garçons Parfums
One of the most popular fragrances in the Series 3 Incense is a sandy mandala made of wood dust and ground coffee by Bertrand Duchaufour and fumigated with Japanese kodo incense.
5 | Shi_sõ, Nomenclature
Shiso is the Japanese name for perilla, a mint respected by chefs in Southeast Asia. In recipes, she always sings along with fish and seafood, but in Shi_so she is assigned the main role - a green, spicy center, from which flashes of anise, verbena and grapefruit diverge.
6 | PG09 Yuzu Ab Irato, Parfumerie Générale
Unripe Japanese yuzu citrus with green herb sorbet: mint, basil, thyme and hyssop. An unsurpassed "freshener" for a hot summer in Moscow.
7 | No 173, Hinoki, L: A Bruket
In addition to great creams, scrubs and bath salts, the Swedish brand L: A Bruket produces perfumed oils - this, for example, smells like Japanese cypress, better known as hinoki. Smell - wood with cool greens of camphor and eucalyptus.>