Sweet fennel

Fennel is the herb that tastes like a sweet before it smells like a plant. Its seeds carry anethole, the same molecule that gives anise and liquorice their sweetness, but in fennel that sweetness is wrapped in something green, earthy and faintly peppery. It is a spice that remembers it was once a leaf.

What sweet fennel is

Sweet fennel oil is steam distilled from the crushed seeds of Foeniculum vulgare var. dulce, the sweet cultivated form of the plant rather than the bitter wild one. The sweet variety is rich in anethole and low in the harsh fenchone that makes bitter fennel medicinal, which gives an oil that is soft, round and gently aromatic. It sits naturally beside citrus, herbs and light woods and gives a composition a sweetness that never feels sugary.

Where our sweet fennel comes from

Ours comes from Austria, where sweet fennel is grown as a field crop in the warm, dry east of the country and the seeds are harvested in late summer once the umbels have dried on the stalk. Fennel grown in a temperate continental climate develops its anethole slowly and evenly, and the Austrian seed gives an oil that is sweet without heaviness, with the earthy, peppery undertone intact. It is a quieter fennel than the oils of hotter countries, and quiet is what I wanted.

How sweet fennel smells

Very sweet, intense anise, slightly camphoraceous and citrus like, with earthy, peppery undertones. It is warmer than star anise and greener, with a faint smell of the crushed stalk beneath the seed.

Sweet fennel in our chapter

• IIParadis de BleuThe Leaves · in the opening

  In Paradis de Bleu it sweetens the herbal opening beside star anise, lime and lavandin, the seed that makes a garden of herbs taste of something.

A note from the atelier

Two anise notes in one opening is deliberate. Star anise gives the clean sweetness and fennel gives the earth beneath it, and together they smell like the garden rather than the confectioner.

Questions about sweet fennel