The Museum of Fragrance, Iwata (2) - Learning world history and cultures through fragrance

After the exhibition of Doll’s Festival, I looked the permanent exhibition of the museum. It was prohibited to take pictures there. I wasn’t disappointed because you could not capture the fragrances by a camera anyway. In the first exhibition room, there are five cabins: Wisteria Cabin, Musk-Melon Cabin, Jinsuikoh Incense Aloeswood (Kyara) Cabin, Ice-Cream Cabin, and Ancient Egypt Cabin. Each of them has a screen inside showing a balloon. When you reach for the balloon, it breaks, and the scent of the cabin comes out. Then, you can hear the explanation of the scent.

For me, the most impressive cabin was Musk-Melon Cabin. Musk melons are a specialty fruit of Iwata and grown in green houses in Toyoda-cho. Since they are very expensive, I can’t remember if I have had any chance to taste them before. But I could enjoy the sweet smell in the cabin. Wisteria Cabin was also interesting. In Iwata, there is a temple Gyokyoji that is famous for its long wisteria that are in bloom in the end of April (search with “yuya no nagafuji” if you are interested in it).

In the next room, you can learn the cultural history of fragrance. There are panels of explanation about the four great civilizations of the world, and you can see some objects such as perfume oil bottles from ancient Syria and Arabia. I was especially interested in the one from Syria that looked very precious. I spent a long time in this room because I watched all 16 videos on TV monitors there. There I learned how to make a mummy, Cleopatra’s perfume, Buddha’s life, Yang Guifei’s body odor, history of the Silk Road, Queens of Hungary’s Water, how CHANEL No.5 was invented, etc. The episodes were very interesting to hear as they handled well-known people in the world history. I heard for the first time that Napoleon was a heavy user of eau de cologne!

The exhibitions in the museum were quite satisfactory. After that I went to the tea room because I was interested in rose juice they had in the menu. It had a beautiful color.

It had a real flavor of roses, and I liked it very much. No wonder it was the most popular drink among visitors, especially women. I wondered if it had anti-aging effects. According to the staff member of the museum, the rose juice is made from damask rose in Bulgaria. It is available also in the museum shop that has many kinds of herb tea, coffee, sweets, and so on.

They have a variety of Japanese scent bags, too.

These are reed diffusers and CT catalyst arranged flowers.

Finally, I bought a pack of rose candies and a pack of herb coffee. The rose candies contain jam made from chemical-free roses called Willian Shakespeare. The coffee is made from carob, roots of chicory, roots of dandelion, and cinnamon cassia.

I tried one of the candies. The flavor of the rose was as distinctive as that of rose juice. I wanted to give out candies to many people so that they could taste. The herb coffee tasted totally different from ordinary coffee. I felt as if I drank some kind of medicine. That may be because I wasn’t used to drink such coffee.

The Museum of Fragrance, Iwata will have a new exhibition “Choix Des Plus Belles Fleurs (The Most Beautiful Flowers) by Redouté and Fragrance of Roses“ from April 6. It seems to be an exhibition of botanical art.

The Museum of Fragrance, Iwata
Address: 2019-15 Tateno, Iwata-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 0538-36-8891
Admission fee: Adults 300 yen
                         High school students and students of higher education 200 yen
                         Elementary school and junior high school students 100 yen
Open hours: 9:30 - 17:30 (entry until 17:00)
Closed: Monday, the day after a public holiday, year-end and Ney Year holidays
Access: 5-minute walk from JR Toyoda-cho Station