It’s 6 am in Tokyo as you make your way home through the quiet back streets, the air humid with early morning mist. As the electric cables above your head crackle and snap, a strange peace descends on the scene. Tokyo is finally at slumber, or at least in brief repose before gathering itself up again into the manic energy that courses through the city like a pulse. Gallivant’s Tokyo captures the moment when Old Tokyo meets New, the sweet smokiness of Japanese incense of Kodo ceremonies spilling out of small wooden temples to meet the sweet-and-sour pungency of izakaya street food.
There’s a lot going on in Tokyo, the city, and so there’s a lot going on in Tokyo, the scent. But despite the cacophony of notes, it all meshes into a singular statement on modern Japanese urban culture. The exciting buzz of yuzu and black pepper in the topnotes conjure the crackle of overhead electric cables swinging softly in the morning breeze, while wasabi, cardamom, and nutmeg lend a dash of complex sour-sweet flavoring to the brew. Tokyo smells intoxicating and strange; otherworldly in the way only exposure to a completely foreign culture can be. Japanese temple incense is the calm at the center of this storm, a cloud of gentle hinoki wood, smoke, and damp flower petals billowing out into the streets as we pass. Before the incense has a chance to turn to powder, a base of exuberantly-spiced ambers, patchouli, sandalwood, and musk moves in to drench the scent in the gold patina of orientalism. This might seem more Arabian-inspired than Japanese at first until you notice that the gentler Japanese accents persist, infiltrating the fog of resin with the aqueous, sweet-and-sour aroma of cardamom, the wasabi, and the silvery ephemerality of hinoki wood. Big city neon energy meets old world Tokyo: this scent brings us straight to the point where they intersect.
