Fragrance Making & Fragrant Dining – Kannauj

Kannauj is a small town between Lucknow and Agra, that has an older history of perfumeries than Grasse in France. Well connected with India’s best expressway, Lucknow-Agra, Kannuaj falls just about 2 hours away from Lucknow and about 2.5 hours from Agra and is a convenient stopover on this route.

Perfumes from Kannauj have a long history and have enjoyed royal patronage – they were worn by the Mughal Emperors for their high quality and unique scents. It is believed that Kannauj has been a perfumery town since more than 1000 years and the traditional perfume making skills of perfumers are passed on from one generation to another within the family. The traditional perfumes are called ‘Itar’ or ‘Attar’ and are usually made from flowers and herbs, but one of the unique varieties here is made from mud, where the scent of first monsoon rain on dry earth is captured to create a perfume. Very few would know, that some of the leading international brands of perfumes pick-up concentrates from here for further production, giving Kannauj perfumes an international reach.

Though a lot of world around Kannauj has changed, but the town of Kannauj still takes pride in producing perfumes in traditional ways and passing on the art within the family of perfumers. One can smell the fragrance even in the drains of Kannuaj, in which the residue from innumerable perfumeries flow.

We have curated a very exclusive experience around the perfume industry of Kannauj, as a great introduction and appreciation of the traditional art of perfume making, that has survived all the modern interventions in this field only to produce the best of fragrances. Add to this a Fragrant Dining experience where guests get a special meal where each dish uses fragrance in one form or another, extracted from flowers, stems or roots.