Few places in the world smell like Anjouan in ylang-ylang season. The curly yellow flower of this tropical tree yields one of the most prized scents in world perfumery, and the Comoros —Anjouan in particular— became the largest producer on the planet. Visiting the plantations and distilleries of the Bambao region is a glimpse into the heart of that story, among fragrant trees and stills smoking at dawn.
The name Bambao is tied to the all-powerful colonial company Comores Bambao, which dominated the ylang and aromatic plant business for much of the 20th century. Although that company is gone, ylang essence is still Anjouan's main export, distilled by hand by thousands of small producers who harvest the flower at dawn, when its scent is strongest.
This guide explains what you'll see —the harvest, the steam still, the golden essential oil— and how to plan the visit: when to go, how to get there from Mutsamudu, what to buy and how to combine Bambao with the nearby historic town of Domoni or the waterfalls of the interior. A different, very Comorian experience, where you learn with your nose as much as with your eyes.
Ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) reached the Comoros in the 19th century and found its ideal home in Anjouan's humid climate. Distilling its essence, started by French colonial companies such as Humblot and above all the Société Comores Bambao —linked to the perfumer Chiris—, made the archipelago a world leader in raw perfumery materials. After independence (1975), the old Bambao distillery was nationalised and later privatised, and today production is spread among thousands of small distillers; the full story is told on the history page.
Read the full history ↓The island of the archipelago's most powerful sultanate: Shirazi ports, the citadel of Mutsamudu, walled Domoni and green slopes that distil ylang-ylang.
Read the history of Anjouan (Ndzuani) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Ylang-ylang is not native to the Comoros. The tree —Cananga odorata, of the custard-apple family (Annonaceae)— comes from Southeast Asia and the region around the Philippines and Indonesia, where its Malay name, usually translated as 'flower of flowers', gives an idea of how much its scent was prized. Its yellow flowers, curled like dangling starfish, give off a sweet, floral and penetrating fragrance that caught the attention of European perfumers in the 19th century.
It was precisely that demand from the budding perfume industry that sent ylang halfway around the world. Over the 19th century, the tree became established on several islands in the Indian Ocean, and in the Comoros it found ideal conditions: a warm, humid climate, fertile volcanic soils and, above all on Anjouan, slopes well watered by the rains. The flower thrived so well that, within a few decades, the Comorian archipelago would become one of the world's major suppliers of its essence.
The secret of Comorian ylang lies in the craftsmanship of its production. The flower has to be picked at dawn, when its scent is at its peak, and steam-distilled straight away so it doesn't lose its aroma. That distillation yields an essential oil that is separated into several grades or 'fractions' (extra, first, second, third) depending on the stage of distillation, each with different uses in perfumery. This know-how, handed down from generation to generation, matters as much as the climate in explaining the fame of ylang from the Comoros.
The name Bambao is inseparable from the colonial history of the plantations. Over the 19th and early 20th centuries, after France annexed the islands, large colonial companies took over vast agricultural estates in the Comoros to grow cash crops. Among them was the firm of the settler Léon Humblot, who by the late 19th century controlled huge tracts of land and much of the trade in perfume plants.
Out of that web came the Société Comores Bambao (SCB), linked to the French perfume house Chiris, which bought up and consolidated former colonial estates and became the dominant player in the ylang and other essences business. For much of the 20th century, the Bambao company practically owned the production and export of perfume oils from the Comoros, and became the world leader in the sector until the country's independence. Its industrial distillery on Anjouan was the hub of the whole system.
Behind that export boom, however, lay a very harsh social reality. The plantation model relied on the poorly paid labour of the Comorian population, working land that had previously been communal or belonged to small farmers, under a deeply unequal colonial system. The flowers that scented Europe's great perfumes were harvested in gruelling conditions by workers who saw almost none of the wealth they created. That tension between the beauty of the product and the injustice of how it was produced defined the whole colonial era of ylang.
With the independence of the Comoros in 1975, the old order of the big colonial companies collapsed. Bambao's historic distillery was first nationalised by the new country and later privatised, against a backdrop of huge political and economic instability. Ylang production, once concentrated in the hands of one powerful company, gradually fragmented: today most Comorian essence is produced by thousands of small farmers and distillers, mainly on Anjouan, each with their own modest still.
That shift democratised the trade, but it also brought problems. Traditional distillation burns enormous amounts of firewood —the cheapest energy source for heating the stills— which has contributed to deforestation on an island already badly hit by logging. On top of that come competition from other origins (such as Madagascar), volatile international prices and a lack of infrastructure. For many Anjouanese families, the 'flower of flowers' is an essential and yet fragile source of income.
In recent years, various projects —from NGOs, cooperatives and the perfume industry itself— have been trying to make production more sustainable: stoves that use less firewood, better prices for producers, fair-trade labels and reforestation. The aim is for Comorian ylang to keep going without destroying the forests that make it possible. For travellers, understanding this history adds layers to the visit: every drop of essential oil distils centuries of exchange, the shadow of colonialism and the daily effort of thousands of farming families.
Visitors to the Bambao area and the plantations of eastern Anjouan today find a landscape that blends colonial memory with present-day rural life. Among the ylang trees pruned into umbrella shapes, the smoking stills and the sweet scent that fills the air in season, you can sense an activity that is still the economic heart of the island. The old facilities tied to the Bambao company sit alongside the small family distilleries that now carry the weight of production.
Ylang-ylang isn't just perfume: it's Comorian identity. It shows up in the country's imagery, in the pride of being 'the perfumed island', in the stories guides tell travellers. Buying a bottle of essence or a bar of soap straight from a producer, watching the flower turn into oil and smelling the steam rising from the still are sensory experiences no museum could recreate, and a direct way for tourism to benefit the people who work the land.
For visitors, Bambao offers more than a good souvenir: it's a living lesson in geography, history and the global economy. Here you understand how an Asian flower, transplanted to an Indian Ocean island by colonial trade, ended up scenting the great bottles of Paris and supporting the livelihood of an entire people. A story of beauty and inequality, of early globalisation and rural resilience, told —quite literally— in the air of Anjouan.
