When people talk about agricultural produce they usually talk about volume and price. There is another way of looking at it that is rarely discussed: looking from the scent.
Many Vietnamese agricultural products have a place in the world of fragrance, most clearly cinnamon, star anise, pepper, coffee and tea. For each of them, scent is not a fixed property. It depends on the variety, the growing area, the time of harvest and the post-harvest handling, and these four factors matter almost equally.
Five names and the scent of each
- Cinnamon: warm, lightly spicy at the opening and sweetening towards the end, over the dry woody base of the bark.
- Star anise: sweet and cool in a herbal way, with its main character coming from anethole in star anise oil.
- Pepper: dry heat with a woody and a green note, often used as the opening of a scent.
- Coffee: roasted, dark, faintly burnt-sweet; the smell changes enormously with the degree of roast.
- Tea: from fresh grass to smoke depending on the processing, and one of the hardest scent groups to blend.
Growing region and season
The same species grown in two different regions smells different. Altitude, soil type, rainfall and hours of sunshine all take part in how a plant accumulates its aromatic compounds. Harvest timing does too: harvest too early and the scent is thin, harvest too late and the sweetness drops while the woody note takes over.
We are not giving comparative figures between regions here, because numbers for essential oil content change from batch to batch and with the method of analysis. If you need data, look it up in specialist publications rather than relying on a figure repeated online.
After harvest is where aroma is most easily lost
A good batch of raw material can lose most of its scent value at the drying and storage stage. Drying too fast in harsh sun drives off the light notes; drying that does not go far enough lets mould and a damp smell take over. Working with cinnamon material, we have found this stage decides more than the choice of growing area. This is ZUNGZA's experience within the scope of one material.
A few questions you often send us
Can Vietnamese produce make perfume
Many Vietnamese materials already appear in the fragrance industry as ingredients. Making a complete perfume requires a great many other things, so the accurate answer is that they can take part, not yet that the whole thing can be made here.
Why does the same product smell different from one lot to the next
Because natural material is not uniform. Perfumers deal with this by testing each batch and adjusting the formula, not by assuming the batches are the same.
Is it a good idea to buy raw material and make things myself
For learning and for pleasure it is well worth it. For making a product to sell you also need quality control, dosage records and safety regulation, and that part takes more time than the blending does.