There are over two hundred species of jasmine. For perfumery, two matter most.

Jasminum Grandiflorum —grown primarily in Grasse and Egypt — is the variety most associated with classical French perfumery. It is elegant, slightly green, floral without aggression. The grande dame of the perfumer’s palette.

Jasminum Sambac is something else entirely.

Native to South and Southeast Asia, Sambac is the Jasmine of India. It blooms at night. The flowers must be harvested in the early hours before sunrise — not unlike rose — because the aromatic compounds are most volatile and most concentrated before the heat of day begins to drive them off. A Sambac flower left unpicked past sunrise is already beginning to lose what makes it remarkable.

The scent of Sambac is richer, darker, and more complex than Grandiflorum. It contains higher concentrations of Indole — the compound responsible for that animalic, slightly challenging quality that makes real Jasmine smell alive rather than merely pleasant. It also contains Benzyl acetate, Linalool, and a range of other compounds that together create something that has no precise synthetic equivalent.

India produces some of the finest Sambac in the world. The Jasmine grown in Tamil Nadu — particularly around Madurai, where the climate and soil produce flowers of extraordinary aromatic density — is considered among the best available anywhere.

This is the material I work with. Not because it is convenient. Because it is the exciting one.