Making things taste the way they taste and smell the way they smell is an expensive, and at times unpredictable, business. Five years ago, Indonesia saw a spell of damp weather followed by volcanic eruptions. The result was bad news for the harvest of a plant called patchouli.
Oil derived from the mintlike herb – a common component of perfumes and colognes – became harder and more costly to procure, leaving perfumeries that hadn’t stockpiled the ingredient in the lurch. Prices finally began to normalize two years later.
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