Elegant grapefruit scent

Every spring, grapefruit flowers, along with many other flowers, compete to show off their colors and spread their intoxicating fragrance. Grapefruit flowers do not have bright, noble, and elegant colors like other flowers. But with their gentle, charming, pure beauty and characteristic, light, and shy fragrance, they captivate people's hearts.

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When the spring rains begin to drizzle, the cold of winter is no longer numb, it is also the time when grapefruit flowers begin to bloom, pure white and pristine. The small, shy clusters of flowers still retain the sparkling, cool spring raindrops. The raindrops wet the flower buds, as if to embellish the pure white flowers to make them more simple, elegant, and fragrant. The scent of grapefruit flowers is a very unique scent that cannot be confused with any other scent. The scent of flowers silently blends into every gentle spring breeze, seeps into every breath, lingers on the hair, and clings to the skirts of young girls, making people's hearts flutter and feel nostalgic.

For me, the scent of grapefruit flowers has become a vast memory, evoking many memories of my childhood. At that time, right in front of the house, I don’t know when, my grandfather planted two ancient grapefruit trees with lush foliage. The two grapefruit trees provided shade all year round and were also an ideal playground for us children.

When the grapefruit flowers bloom, the scent of grapefruit flowers fills the whole area. Every morning when I wake up and watch the grapefruit trees bloom, I feel like I am admiring a carpet of pure white flowers decorated with sparkling yellow pistils, blending in with the gentle morning sunlight of spring. We always feel peaceful when we see that picture in our garden. When the grapefruit flowers are in full bloom, they fall all over the path.

After school, we enjoyed playing under the grapefruit tree and picked the intact grapefruit flowers to weave into beautiful wreaths and played the game of “bride and groom”. The “brides” who were given grapefruit flower crowns in their hair were very happy and cherished that special gift. It was so simple, but it was forever the innocent, pure sky of childhood, clinging to childhood memories like the most precious and loving things.

When the grapefruit flowers bloom, the elderly in my hometown still indulge in the elegant hobby of using the pure white, fragrant grapefruit flowers to make tea. My grandfather was also one of those who often made grapefruit flower tea to invite guests to enjoy. He chose the fresh, pure white flowers, carefully washed them, and dried them in the gentle spring breeze.

When the grapefruit flowers were dried, the scent seemed to be purer, then my grandfather used it to infuse tea. The very clean white ceramic pot was the only thing he used to infuse grapefruit flower tea. When infusing, he gently spread a layer of grapefruit flowers mixed with the tea.

After the tea has been steeped for a sufficient amount of time, he filters it out of the grapefruit petals that have turned pale yellow, and roasts it over hot coals until the tea is completely dry. When the scent of the tea and the scent of the flowers are deeply blended, he stores the tea in a ceramic pot to use whenever needed.

What I like best is being close to him, watching him make tea for guests. I happily feel the scent of grapefruit flowers, the gentle fragrance wafting up, as if carrying the breath of sweet spring.

Also at the base of my family’s old grapefruit tree back then, the pure white grapefruit flowers were picked by village girls to make hair wash water. I still hear women telling each other that washing hair with grapefruit flower water not only keeps hair smooth and soft, but also retains the scent for a long time, and has the effect of nourishing hair.

Therefore, the girls in my hometown at that time, at the age of eighteen or twenty, were all very beautiful, radiant, and attractive with smooth white skin and especially long, silky hair, imbued with the scent of grapefruit flowers every spring.

This year, during the grapefruit blossom season, I returned to my hometown. Memories of my childhood under the old grapefruit tree at the end of the lane came flooding back, so warm and vibrant, even though the two grapefruit trees that were associated with my childhood had also followed my grandfather to the afterlife.

In the light spring rain, I still walked on the familiar village road and took a deep breath to feel a special scent of the old days as if it were still here. The dust of the long years has blurred both space and time, but the feeling of that flower scent is still intact, infinitely pure. I have realized that, even on the busy road of life, we can go to a faraway place, but our hearts always turn to our homeland, to our roots.

There, there are clusters of pure white grapefruit flowers blooming. That place is so peaceful, calm with simple, rustic, sweet love forever intertwined, deeply engraved in the stirring, unforgettable memories.

Le Xuan Binh

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/thanh-tao-huong-hoa-buoi-192429.htm