Asaar - the aroma of flowering oranges

The southern climate attracts the diversity of its flora, especially in spring, when nature, having gained strength, squanders all its diversity of colors, aromas and forms. Here and the air of the city squares will again be filled with the subtle aroma of flowering citrus trees, they will be covered with snow-white and fragrant flerdorange. Meanwhile, orange trees are still hung with their bright orange fruits, like New Year’s balls. At first glance, it seems strange that in the center of the city there are orange trees, passers-by in the thousands a day pass by and none will succumb to the temptation to pick a sweet juicy fruit. There's nothing weird about that. The fact is that sweet oranges that are eaten are planted on plantations, and a bitter orange grows in the city, which is not suitable for food, except for the manufacture of orange jam. Citrus trees perform rather their aesthetic function, pleasing the eye with their round orange fruit beckoning the eyes of visitors among the dark green foliage.

Due to the aroma of flerdorange, there is one romantic legend. It is said that during the rule of the Moors, the sultan ruled in Granada, whom his subjects called Alcabul, i.e., “outstanding”. One day, his attention was attracted by the young and beautiful concubine Al-Asaar. However, her heart belonged to the young architect Huran. One night the lovers met in the palace garden. According to legend, that night, their bodies and orange trees in bloom created a special fragrance and so a perfume called Asaar was born. The next morning, grieving with rage, the sultan executed his concubine and scattered her ashes in the garden. But since that day, unfortunately for the sultan in Granada every spring, the aroma of the flowering orange tree has always filled the city, reminding of the beautiful Asaar.

A clear blue sky, an excess of sunlight and heat, awakens not only nature, but also forces one to tune in to a lyrical mood, and so involuntarily the lines of German genius pop up in consciousness: “You know the edge of lemon groves in bloom, Where the purple king clings to the leaf, Where the mute of the South breathes the sky, Where is myrtle dormant, where is laurel mesmerized? Have you been there? There, there, Beloved, we'd be gone forever. Goethe, Mignon, 1785.