Sweet with the evening rain

SCENT of earth, sweet with the evening rain,’ wrote Edith and Saretta Nesbit in All Round The Year (1888). One summer, a spell of fine, dry weather was suddenly punctuated by a short, sharp burst of rain. As I walked in the garden, I was conscious of an intensely earthy, fresh and almost sweet aroma, as if the shower had awoken the earth and the plants and they were rejoicing by giving off this distinctive fragrance. It is one of the most evocative and invigorating smells of summer—you can even buy it in a bottle.

For several generations, perfumiers in Kannauj in India’s Uttar Pradesh have captured and absorbed the or ‘earth perfume’, an essence released by the interaction between earth and water.