What you pay for in a 3 ml, 6 ml and 12 ml bottle
Why attar is sold by weight, why prices vary so much between attars, and which size suits a first purchase.
How Faiz tests every batch before it reaches the shelf
Each attar from Kannauj is checked by nose, by eye and on cotton before we pour it. A look at our tasting bench.
Every few weeks a tin of new attar arrives from our distilling families in Kannauj, packed in straw. Before any of it goes into the shop bottles, Faiz sits down at the small bench behind our counter and tests it. The routine has not changed since his great-grandfather’s time.
First he looks at it. He pours a little into a clear glass dish and holds it to the window. Ruh gulab should be pale gold, mitti a light amber, shamama nearly brown. A cloudy oil means water has not fully left it, and the batch goes back to age in its kuppi.
Then comes the cotton test. He dips a small swab, the same kind we sell as a phaya, and leaves it on the bench beside a swab from the last good batch. He smells both at intervals: after one minute, ten minutes, an hour and the next morning. A good attar should open cleanly, settle without turning sour, and still be there after 24 hours.
Last, he puts a drop on his own wrist and wears it through a working day. If he is happy, the batch is poured into our stock bottles and the date is written on the label. About one batch in ten is sent back or set aside for longer ageing. It slows us down, but it is the reason a customer who bought ruh gulab in 2015 finds the same scent today.
