maintains. “Someone that’s never been west of the Mississippi might smell this and say it reminds them of camping when they were a kid, or the smell when their dad cut the lawn. Memory is the language of fragrance.” During our foraging trek, the first stop is deep within a dense area of Tahoe National Forest. There, we meet up with Leslie Smith and Pablo Garcia Martinez, members of Juniper Ridge’s wildcrafting field team who are sustainably harvesting plants and piling them into a large green truck to bring back to the workshop in Oakland. They carefully trim underneath cedar trees, removing what they say is basically fuel for wildfire and would eventually be cleared by the forest service. This is the bounty that will become part of the Yuba River regional blend. Even though there is a large pile of greens in the truck, the actual output depends on local conditions, elevation, and precipitation; these cuttings could result in a good amount of essential oil or almost nothing. For better or for worse, wildcrafting is subject to the fluctuating moods of nature. As we wander through the trees, various plants with strange and exotic names—kitkit-dizze, pennyroyal, mugwort—are brought to my attention. We then head to the campsite to witness the early stage of one of the techniques Juniper Ridge employs in scent experimentation: distillation. As we pitch our tents, the company’s media director, Obi Kaufmann, sets up a makeshift whiskey still; all of its tubes and funnels give off a “mad scientist” vibe. He stirs his stew of kitkit-dizze, cedar, and Douglas fir in a large pot over the fire, the ingredients emitting a lovely, heady aroma. The process is similar to steaming vegetables. In this case, the fragrant steam and oil from the pot runs through a condenser and separates—resulting in an essential oil that will be an ingredient in products such as the cabin spray.
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Pablo Garcia Martinez hard at work. Obi adds foraged kitkit-dizze and cedar to a pot. He then cooks his “fragrance stew” over a campfire.
The Juniper Ridge scents are ever changing, depending on the local conditions and harvest time.
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