Aromatherapy, Ayurveda, In English, Spice routes

Ginger power and vitality

Ginger and chocolate are a beautiful synergy. The aroma of ginger is pungent, yet it carries a smooth, crisp note that makes it so appealing. It brings a sense of warm vitality, and beside chocolate it forms a winning pair.

In Ayurveda ginger is called vishwabhesaj, universal medicine, and tradition prepares it in many forms: powdered, fresh, as an essential oil, and it appears in many winter herbal teas. Two areas belong to it above all: digestion and the breath. Tradition also values its power against damp, which is why it has long accompanied the cold, wet months.

A simple ginger and lemon tea brings warmth, relief and a good digestion. Its scent has a gift of its own, because even a breath of it helps in the moments when something needs digesting, perhaps in the figurative sense too.

In the diffuser, ginger finds natural companions in the citrus family: lemon, sweet orange, green mandarin. Citrus fruits are delicious in diffusion and give ginger a bright, sunny side. Cinnamon leaf adds a spicier, rounder tone, for an air that smells of winter kitchens.

Other spices are also synergistic, and the next articles travel further along their routes (if you like spices, discover Materia viva, the aromatic ezine here).

Ginger is a plant for cold days: a slice in hot water with lemon, a diffuser scented with ginger and orange in the evening, a square of dark chocolate with a touch of fresh ginger beside a cup of tea. Small gestures, and the house turns warm.

Aromatherapy, Emotional Aromatherapy, In English

vanilla, a soul hug

Known and used in Aromatherapy for its olfactory and emotional qualities, Vanilla is a real ‘soul support’.

If you want to know its true smell, you have to take the pods and open them. You will then smell a scent that is not the cloying one we often find in perfumes: Vanilla actually smells sweet, but also has bitter and liqueur-like undertones. If you have the oleoresin, or a dilution of it, you will smell an enveloping and inviting fragrance, and depending on the geographical origin of the Vanilla you are smelling, there will be floral notes, or perhaps sweet, or deep (in case it comes from Mexico).

When smelling real Vanilla, we will generally find density, warmth, and full but never cloying sweetness.

“By ‘listening’ to its scent, you will notice its calming and enveloping activity – even scientific research confirms its anxiolytic qualities. If you like to create perfumed blends, Vanilla blends well with flowery scents, but also with incense, resins and some woods (such as Sandalwood essential oil), as well as spices such as Cinnamon.

This orchid has had a curious fate in that it is native to Mexico, where it is now minimally harvested, while production in Madagascar is extensive (although not native, Vanilla here is ‘transplanted’). It is also produced in other parts of the world, for example in Tahiti (if you love aromatic raw materials, check Materia Viva, the aromatic ezine).

What we know as vanilla pods are actually the pods picked from the plant, which are dried and fermented for at least three months, at which point we get the pod we are used to using in cooking. If we open it with a small knife, we will find the seeds inside, which are the most fragrant and tasty part, and with them we can indulge in flavouring.

Esperienze olfattive, scrittura e immagini d'autore

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