Reference point
Open a freshly picked lotus flower and smell the lotus “rice” on the stamens.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Clear, cool, slightly powdery, with a little green of the leaf. Not sweet like most flowers, and entirely without the indolic note that jasmine and champaca have.
What is remarkable is that the smell lives in the stamens, not the petals. Lotus petals are almost scentless; all the smell is concentrated in the white grains clinging around the stamens, which is why lotus tea makers use only that part.
Lotus from West Lake in Hanoi and lotus from other regions smell clearly different — a difference tea makers recognise at once, but one we have not yet found any public data measuring.
How to smell it
Pick a lotus early in the morning, just as it starts to open. Part the petals and find the small white grains clinging around the yellow stamens. Bring them close and smell that part. Compare it with the petals — you will find almost all the smell in one place.
Why this one is hard
Because of expectation. The lotus is a great symbol in Vietnamese culture, so people expect a strong, sweet smell. In reality it is very reserved, and that reserve leads many people to conclude, wrongly, that lotus has no scent.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Lotus
Floral family
Lotus is reserved and powdery, and its smell is in the stamens rather than the petals. Areca blossom radiates from the whole spray and is much stronger at the same distance.
Scientific note
The lotus does not just produce heat; it regulates it. The flower keeps its inner chamber at about 30 to 36 degrees for the two to four days it is open, while the outside temperature swings between 10 and 45 degrees — the colder it gets, the more heat the flower produces to compensate. This is regulation around a set point, not simple warming, and very few plants can do it.
The heat comes from oxidising carbohydrates, mostly in the receptacle, with an output of up to about one watt. The steady temperature helps pollen and ovules develop, makes the aromatic compounds evaporate more strongly, and rewards the beetles that spend the night inside the flower.
In Vietnamese life
West Lake lotus tea is scented with lotus “rice”, and each kilo of tea needs thousands of flowers. It is the most costly scenting technique still practised in Vietnam, and in principle it is enfleurage — using a dry base to absorb scent without heat or solvent.