My olfactory gallery of autumnal scents cannot be imagined without quince. According to a Georgian tale, quince took all summer to decide whether it was a pear or an apple, when suddenly the chills of autumn arrived, and there it was—neither pear nor apple, neither sweet nor pretty. Yet, the scent of this fruit is unlike any other—sweet, with a honeyed undercurrent, as well as fresh with a spicy exotic note. The fragrance of quince would pervade my house when I was growing up, as my mother made her quince preserves, boiling hard pieces of fruit in sugar syrup till they released their unique fragrance and turned into rose coloured jewels. The aroma would rise up like a breeze from the exotic gardens of a faraway land…
A flame inside a beautiful cobalt glass on my dresser unleashes not only a blue tinged soft light, but also a wonderful scent. The fragrance is tart and crisp with enough sweetness to lend a nice balance and to meld all the notes together. One moment, it is a plate laden with grapefruit slices sprinkled with sugar and lemony coriander seeds; the next, it is a bouquet of garden herbs about to be chopped in the course of dinner preparations.
