They light a wood or cow-dung fire underneath, then fill the receiver with sandalwood oil-which serves as a base for the scents-and sink it into the trough. When a fresh supply of flowers comes in, the craftsmen put pounds of rose or jasmine or other petals into each deg, cover the deg with water, hammer a lid down on top, and seal it with mud. Each still consisted of the copper deg built atop its own oven and beside its own trough of water-and a bulbous condenser called a bhapka (receiver) that looked like a giant butternut squash. To put things simply-Kannauj extracts the Mitti Attar through a long process that involves cultivating the clay, baking it, distilling it and capturing the steam it lets off when contained in the deg bhapkas.Įnvironmental journalist Cynthia Barnett, in an article for The Atlantic, describes the process as: "The ancient, painstakingly slow distillation practiced in Kannauj is called deg-bhapka. Known more popularly for perfumes like Rose, Henna and Mogra, the little city of Kannauj also specialises in what they call the Mitti Attar, which is produced by cultivating the soil from the region, using a centuries-old technology. And it's an old city in India's Uttar Pradesh that has been making this possible, for hundreds of years. Yes, two mighty people named IJ Bear and RG Thomas coined the term petrichor combining Greek words 'Petra', a rock, and 'Ikhor', the tears of gods in Greek mythology.īut we're not here to tell you about Greek mythology we're here to tell you that you can always, always smell like fresh rain, if you wish to. For most Indians, the smell of rain (with pakoras, preferably) brings back fond memories.Īs it happens, they also have a word for that smell when fresh rain drops permeate the surface of that parched ground-petrichor. Quite certainly, 'rain' pops up right after mom's cooking or your significant-other's musk or perfume?
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