When fragrance evokes taste—and memory becomes the palate.
There are quiet moments when you only inhale a scent, yet it feels as if you have just tasted something delicate. No dish is present, no cup of tea in hand—still, the palate stirs. That taste isn’t obvious or insistent, but it lingers softly—as if someone had just told you a story, in the language of scent.
Those who love perfume know this well: fragrance does not belong to smell alone. It threads through memory and feeling—and at times, through taste. Not in a literal way, but through imagination, through the lives we have lived, through private associations that cannot be measured.
Imagined Taste: When Scent Becomes Memory
Taste and smell are closely linked in biology—yet their connection is more than physiological. When guided with enough finesse, scent can awaken a sensation akin to tasting—not with the tongue, but with memory.
We often forget specific smells, but we remember the settings tied to them. And sometimes, when a fragrance returns us to a moment that once had flavour—a late-afternoon tea, a childhood dish, a rainy-season kitchen—the imagined palate stirs again. At that point, scent is no longer merely “smelled”; it becomes a kind of aftertaste. Light, fine, and unmistakably real.
From the Plate to the Palette: A Cross-Sensory Experience
From this very idea came a special experience at OKU – Regent Phu Quoc in August 2024. In a dialogue between cuisine and perfume, Olfactory Omakase invited R Parfums and Chef Andy Huỳnh to compose a multi-layered journey of sight, smell, and taste. Six dishes were designed for six accords, with the emotional arc led by fragrances presented as part of the table itself.
Here, scent was not only to be inhaled—it was “served,” like a course. Each note became an imagined aftertaste, weaving through culinary detail, summoning something both familiar and hard to name. When taste is awakened by smell, a new register opens: guests do not simply eat a dish; they relive something once lived.
A Sip of Memory—When Perfume Suggests Taste
Some creations are built precisely to evoke this sensation. Not the syrupy gourmand of confections, but a veiled sweetness—rice-rinse water, young sugarcane, citrus peel, a breath of tea. Such perfumes do not make one hungry; they create the impression of tasting a memory long set aside.
Nostalgic March, a creation by R Parfums, is a telling example. Its structure does not point to any single dish. Yet within the poise of pomelo blossom, the whisper of steeped tea, and the light trace of young cane, many find the sense of taking a first spring sip—where taste is elusive, but the afterglow is cool, gentle, and intimately known.
No one can name it exactly, yet many recognise the same sensation: something very light that once passed the throat—now returning by way of scent
Taste as an Aesthetic
To awaken taste through scent is not a mere trick. For artistic perfumers, it is a way to reach emotions that resist naming. As sound can summon images and colour can stir feeling, perfume can open a passage for the imagined palate—a refined instrument of expression.
Here, smell is no longer the centre, but a threshold through which other senses may pass. It becomes a layered, multisensory field: the hush of a room, tempered light, and a soft trail of fragrance—enough to restore a complete experience that is not quite eating or drinking, and perhaps only remembering.
When Scent Extends into Taste
When smell quickens taste, perfume gains fullness. It doesn’t stop at the nose; it sinks into memory, answers within the body, and brings back what we thought had gone—by a very different road. Nostalgic March is one of many such examples. From it, we understand that in fragrances shaped with quietude, detail, and recollection, there is always something that can be “tasted.” Not on the tongue—but in memory.
