“Bush Tang” In Australian Tweeds

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 54, 18 February 1949, Page 3

“Bush Tang” In Australian Tweeds

For 18 months chemists and other experts have been experimenting in injecting a typical Australian aroma into the tweeds manufactured at a woollen mill at Geelong, Victoria,,

states the N.Z. Wool Board news service.

The managing director of the mill, Mr C. Hirst, said the chemists were trying to produce an aroma which recalled the Australian bush. When they had decided on the aroma, they would impregnate the tweeds withit in the same way as Harris tweeds were impregnated with the odour of peat. He hopes that the new product will be on the market this year.

Mr Hirst referred to a newspaper article stating that Harris tweed had lost its typical odour because the Hebridean weavers who used to work in primitive dwellings alongside a peat fire now had chimneys in their modern houses. He said the Australian cloth would be treated with a chemical solution in the final scouring operations. The odour would last the age of the cloth and would have “just the right touch of subtlety.” Hitting on the right bush smell had been difficult. The chemists were aiming at “just that\ combined gum and forest tint—the sort of typically Australian bush smelj which visjfborsr noticed.’ They did not want too much eucalptus in it. .