As we have seen recently, Taiwan seems well caught up on international perfumery, including Western niche brands. Conversely, the island has also started to make itself known for creators of perfume. I already mentioned the brand P.Seven and their award-winning Aged Tea, which I first encountered in Taipei 101 and saw again in the shop Design Pin inside the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei.

Design Pin sells innovative products of various categories, with particular focus on those that have won the Golden Pin Design Award, so you can find creative solutions to everyday needs—a sleek cutting board that can be heated to thaw your frozen steak? smart, multifunctional lamps shaped like birds?—and, wonderfully, perfumes.

Personal fragrance gets very personal with Odor Funder, who also design scents for corporate spaces and run custom blending workshops for individuals. I’m saying this based on the names of some of their perfumes, which roughly translate as “the best smelling male scent” (connoting timelessness in that you won’t tire of it quickly—tea, oud, moss, and a bit of tobacco), “the soap scent of a warm male,” “the sugarcane scent of a scumbag” (because sugarcane starts off sweet, but after some chewing, all you’re left with is pulp), and, somewhat more disturbingly in English, the bestseller of the week at the time I saw it was “the natural scent of a young woman” (a light floral vanilla marketed to said young women).

If you’re looking to learn perfumery, an easily discoverable option is the Laboratory of Fragrance & Perfume. We found them by chance walking on the street in Taipei. (Other locations are in Taichung and Tainan.) A workshop was in session when we dropped in, but they didn’t mind us looking around and taking pictures.

A formula on the wall makes it easy to proportion top, middle, and base notes. Accords for selection are labeled with the letters T, M, and B.

They also had a collection of ready-made perfumes, as well as a gin gift set, which included a vial of vellichor! If I’d noticed that in person rather than from the photo later, I would have asked whether it’s meant to be added in for flavor, like bitters. A fascinating idea.

Lesser-known brands can be found on dedicated shelves in larger stores, such as the renowned bookstore chain Eslite, which has branched into lifestyle products and even a hotel (right by the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park). These perfumes tend to be more trend following and on the lighter side. The few I tried seemed to overdose on certain popular aromachemicals.

In Taichung, I met up with my childhood friend who had gotten me a perfume as a present for the previous Christmas, brought it back to London, found out she couldn’t easily mail it to me in the United States, and held on to it until we finally caught up with each other in person. (Ironically, we had traveled to some of the same cities throughout last year but always at different times.) She had bought it at a market in the old downtown of Taichung specializing in nostalgic items.

The scent was called Rose Oolong, right up my alley. Unfortunately, having sat for over a year, at least 2 mL had evaporated from the 10-mL travel spray. I was eager to try it.

When I first sprayed it in the humid and relatively warm environment of Taichung, it smelled quite literally of rose and tea. My impression trying it again in the dry winter of the northeastern United States is a burst of citrus, possibly some apple, leading into musky florals and light tea supported by a woody background. Something is slightly harsh and prickly on the nose, likely associated with a floral or fruit note. This perfume, too, could work well as a hand soap or lotion.

Rose Oolong seems to have been discontinued, but it was part of a series called AMPM by perfumer I-Chun Chou that focuses on tea notes. The company, based in the greater Taichung area, is called Yan Yan Tang (研妍堂) and also runs workshops and sells aromachemicals in small quantities.

Coincidentally, while trying to find information on the perfume, I came across a web page dated August 2021 that listed the Laboratory of Fragrance & Perfume, Odor Funder, and Yan Yan Tang as the places in Taiwan where you could take workshop classes that used single-molecule aromachemicals.

Going further down the rabbit hole, it seems that perfumery enthusiasts in Taiwan can source molecules from Pell Wall in the UK or Perfumer’s Apprentice in the US, or locally from a company in Tainan called Per & Pro (for “perfection and professional”). Per & Pro are currently offering a set of essential oils of 25 different flowers native to Taiwan, by which I’m very tempted…

All photographs by me.