A box of one season,from one place.

The karewas are the elevated plateaus of the Kashmir valley: ancient lake beds, terraced over millennia into fine alluvial silt. The saffron fields of Pampore stand on karewa. So do the almond orchards and the walnut groves, worked by the same families across four and five generations.

Kashmiri walnuts, thin-shelled, the kernels lifting whole from the shell. Mamra almonds — dense, sweet, high in oil, and related to the uniform commercial almond in name alone. Ladakhi apricots, sun-dried at altitude and never sulphured, which accounts for their amber depth rather than the bright orange of treated fruit.

The oldest gift in the valley, and the most enduring.

The samovar stands at the centre of a Kashmiri household — charcoal at its core, tea drawn continuously from the chamber around it. It is a vessel built for hospitality rather than for occasion.

Three infusions. Qahwa, with green cardamom, cinnamon and slivered almond. Zafrani Kehwa, the same foundation weighted with saffron until the cup runs amber, reserved by tradition for a guest of consequence. And chamomile from the high meadows, for the close of the evening.

Jahangir laid out Shalimar Bagh on the shore of the Dal for Nur Jahan: terraces descending to the water, a channel running its length, chinars set along the walks to turn together in autumn. Four centuries on, it remains the reference for what a garden in Kashmir should be.

The largest composition in the collection. Five hundred grams each of Mamra almonds, sun-dried Ladakhi apricots and Black Forest honey — full measures rather than tasting portions. Two grams of Mongra saffron, a spice requiring some one hundred and fifty thousand hand-picked flowers to the kilogram. Cold-pressed almond and apricot oils alongside.

The valley at its fullest expression.

Marg is the Kashmiri word for meadow, and it recurs throughout the valley's place names: Gulmarg, the meadow of flowers; Sonamarg, the meadow of gold. The meadow is where the flocks summer, where the flowering is, and where the bees follow.

Four honeys, each shaped entirely by what stood in bloom nearest the hive.

Sidr, from jujube blossom — dark, dense, faintly medicinal. Black Forest, gathered among high conifer stands, resinous and the least sweet of the four. Borage, single-origin, pale and deceptively delicate. Wild Floral, which alters with each season's flowering and is never precisely repeated.

Intended to be opened together.

Wande is winter, and in Kashmir it is long. The passes close, the Dal ices at its margins, and a household lives through to spring on what was set aside in autumn — the finest ghee, the saffron, the honey held back from ordinary use.

Ghee from Badri cattle, a Himalayan hill breed that grazes at altitude and yields sparingly. Two grams of Mongra saffron. Wild floral honey and high-meadow chamomile. Cold-pressed almond oil, for the skin as much as the kitchen.

A collection assembled entirely from what restores.

Sonth is spring. The snow withdraws from the valley floor, the almond orchards at Badamwari come into flower, and the season passes almost as quickly as it arrives.

Chamomile from the high meadows, where altitude slows the plant and concentrates its oils. Honey drawn from wild flowering — unplanted, unarranged, and altering in character from one season to the next. And one gram of Mongra saffron: pure stigma, hand-picked at first light, before the sun reaches the flower.

The most restrained composition in the collection.

Autumn in the valley is brief. The chinars turn along the roads, and for a few weeks the presses run.

Cold pressing yields less and takes considerably longer. It is the only method that preserves the aromatics — the reason an unheated almond oil carries the character of the nut, while a heated one carries only the character of oil.

Three oils, pressed from Mamra almond, Ladakhi apricot kernel and Kashmiri walnut. Each drawn from orchards worked by the same families across generations.