Duchesse de Brabant normally has a strong tea scent. It IS a tea rose, and they are so named because they smell like...tea. In DdB there isn't a sweet component, what most people would identify as "rose", at all. But I've never found it to be unpleasant. Your rose looks like DdB, but I'd question if that's what you really have if the scent is "yuck". But then again, it may just be your perception of the tea scent. Some people do find it astringent, and others can't detect it at all. There's a whole thread on the perception of scent here. Scroll down to read my posts on how scent is processed by our nose. A lot is dependent on genetics...ours, not the roses'! lol.

EDIT: that sweet scent you're missing is commonly called "old rose", and is typical of the damask and gallica roses. Their genes are where the scent comes from in a lot of modern roses. Most tea roses do not have those roses in their ancestry, therefore lack that scent component. Hybrid teas, on the other hand, have much more complex ancestry, and sometimes DO have the old rose perfume.

These days with Covid damage to noses one might not be getting usual opinions.

My nose isn’t Covid damaged, and i share everone’s opinion that this rose smells BAD, In any case, my question stil is: Can the smell of a rose variety get mutated after this variety is propagated repeatedly over a long time?

Nope, your nose isn't Covid damaged. Tea roses, to my nose, have always smelled BADLY. "Orthene and clean Tupperware". Bitter and completely unappealing. If a "Tea" smells good, it ain't a "Tea" but a Tea Hybrid or a Hybrid Tea. A Hybrid Tea is a Tea X Hybrid Perpetual. A Tea Hybrid is a Tea X anything else except a Hybrid Perpetual or Hybrid Tea. Teas stink.

Yes! The discrepancy between the rave reviews online and the revulsion on the ground had me wondering.

Obviously you didn't read my comments about perception of scent on the linked thread. Not my fault. But I basically said exactly what Kim just stated, without the personal experience, but from a scientific stand point. Kim did not "answer your question", just validated your perception. And it boils down to YOURS and his genetic ability to smell certain scents.

An old friend was a middle school science teacher. One of the experiments he used to teach heredity was to use these Phenylthiourea (PTC) Paper Strips - Genetic Taste Testing strips. He would send home the appropriate number for all the members of the student's household and have them get their parents and siblings to taste them and report back on the results. It demonstrates the heredity of the ability to taste bitter, something evolutionary beneficial as many poisonous substances are very bitter tasting. He said he always steeled himself in preparation for those who returned saying their parents either tasted it or didn't and they were the opposite. If both parents tasted bitter, then the child should also taste it. If not, "ask your parents". I tasted one and I am a "bitter taster". What tastes and smells good to my spouse is often horrible to me as I perceive bitterness at a heightened level in comparison. Bitter tasting can also be demonstrated by simply smelling Lantana. To some, it smells "minty". To my nose, it is strongly "dirty litter box". I used to experiment on customers who would come into the nursery looking for rabbit and deer resistant plants. I'd show them Lantana and suggest they smell it before touching it, then I'd ask their perception. It seemed almost split evenly between those to whom it smelled "minty" and those who smelled "dirty cat box". It's quite similar to the perception of cilantro. To some, it has an enjoyable herbal taste. To others, it tastes like bar soap. I enjoy its contribution to Mexican food because I learned that taste was necessary in that spicing profile but to just eat it? Nope, like munching on a bar of soap. Taste and smell are intimately related so if one element of taste is heightened, it's also heightened in scent. I'm sure there are several other similar genetic variations as well as the environmental and physical differences which affect taste and smell. https://www.amazon.com/Nasco-PTC-Paper-Strips-Vial/dp/B001D7FF5E

This is so interesting to me, I absolutely adore the fragrance of this rose!

I think mine smells wonderful, but I can't smell my lilacs. No Covid either, but allergies bad nose.

Well, given the choice between smelling the rose and lilacs, I am DELIGHTED to be able to smell lilacs as they have long been one of my favorite scents! I HAD to find and grow Lilac Dawn specifically for its "lilac scent". It's mauvish and sort of, side ways, if you squint smells "lilac-ish'.

I also agree that a strong tea scent is off-putting. When it’s really strong, it smells like tobacco to me. I can tolerate it, though, when a rose has a mix of fruit or damask with it.

Ha, ha! I’m in Sheila’s and Oursteelers Tea scent camp. I love the aroma of my DdB and grow her next to my porch for easy access to her blooms for sniffing and cutting. I also adore the scent of the old Tea rose ‘Odee Pink’. And, like Kim, the perfume of lilacs sends me! But paperwhites, especially when forced inside, give me a migraine. Go figure. Carol

I wonder if soil chemistry can affect scent as affects a rose in other ways, such as health. It’s surely just a coincidence that Sheila, Oursteelers and I all garden in the US Pacific NW, but I do wonder about the soil chemistry question in general. Carol

I like tea rose fragrance and it also smells like tobacco to me. I like the smell of cigars or pipe tobacco but not cigarettes. I think people taste things differently as well, and it's genetic.

@erasmus_gw

I suspect you are right. My husband and I have (almost) completely different senses of smell in the garden. My nose picks up citrusy scents in a heartbeat. To my nose, a bunch of my Gallicas smell like lemons. He cannot smell La Ville de Bruxelles. My husband LOVES even the highly phenolic scented Teas/HTs. I don’t really, but also my nose (fortunately) misses that scent on DdB and others. I can smell the added rotten egg aroma of natural gas when a professional detector hardly registers the fact. Carol

Duchesse de Brabant

Duchesse de Brabant smells like raspberries to me, and I like it. Are those old blooms? Sometimes the scent can go "off" or bad as the flower ages.

One rose that rarely smelled good to me was Souvenir de la Malmaison. Most of the time I thought it smelled like yeasty beer.

I love both the scent of lilacs and of the Dutchesse, which is one of the teas I actually can smell (not all of them have scent for me). Aren't new basals exciting? The huge deluge of rain we had in December (never mind the following three months...) seems to have inspired a lot of those this year, in roses and many other shrubs, and it's so pleasing.

I've been considering it because ARFR has it and says it's hardy to 5b. I have no idea if that's accurate but I'm skeptical.

• @Aaron Rosarian Zone 5b it probably was hardy to an historic 5b that one time it was tried. That isn't any guaranty it will be to the average 5b in the average year. Even Paul Barden will tell you he succeeded in pushing zones for quite a few years until the zone pushed back and killed the too-tender plants. Of course it CAN be done, if all the stars align and the "Gods" smile on you but those conditions are the exception and never the rule.

If you want a lovely old-er pink rose that blooms a lot, and is black spot resistant, get Mrs B R Cant. She smells like candy!

Wow! I wish I could share your olfactories, @sultry_jasmine_nights (Florida-9a-ish)! I've grown several Mrs. B.R. Cant bushes and none of them had a scent I could even loosely describe as "pleasant", much less "candy". I don't doubt you perceive it as that scent and I'm glad you can and you enjoy it. My nose just doesn't detect that.

Oh wow! Am I the only one that thinks it smells fantastic? I do live in a humid environment and can smell a lot of roses fairly well. I can smell most of the teas that others say they can't but none smell anything like candy, like Mrs B R Cant does lol.

I cannot pass by this rose without taking a big whiff or three lol.

I love mine too, Sultry including the smell.

@sultry_jasmine_nights (Florida-9a-ish)

@Sheila z8a Rogue Valley OR

I am also blessed with a nose that adores Mrs. BR Cant! If only I had room in my tiny garden for her substantial, matronly self…. Carol

roseseek I am an extreme bitter taster, yet DdB smells amazing, probably raspberries (I can't remember), so it may be the wet PNW.

I have her white sport Madame Joseph Schwartz in my garden. It smells very faint of citrus to me. The Duchess de Brabant at Descanso Gardens smells the same. I must be missing the olfactory gene that smells the other scent molecules of petroleum and Tupperware fragrance. This is a rose that barely has any scent at all to me, but the scent molecules that I do detect are pleasant. However, I have the tea Monsieur Tillier, and it is my second favorite fragrance (black tea, black pepper and bananas) of all my roses that also includes Crimson Glory (strong old rose), Lemon Spice (clove and old rose), Lady of Shallot (myrrh), Annie Laurie McDowell (faint old rose and violets) and Golden Celebration (myrrh and citrus, mixed with old rose sometimes). My favorite is Marie Pavie (wafting musk) and third favorite is Perle d’Or (wafting honey). Most roses in my garden don’t have much fragrance until I cut and bring them inside. Marie Pavie and Annie Laurie McDowell scent the entire yard but only on a warm day.

Oh and I should mention that several of my roses seem to have changing fragrance depending on weather I presume. In hot weather Golden Celebration looses the citrus and old rose components and it is only myrrh and then it seems a bit stinky to me. Star of the Republic has extremely faint black pepper fragrance all the time but occasionally, one or two blooms a year have an incredibly strong citrus fragrance, which I cut and brought inside and it perfumed the entire living room. Madame Alfred Carriere has the best smelling foliage if you cut it, but her blooms often smell like cat pee which I don’t find totally unpleasant and sometimes like honey.

Many roses (and other flowers) have changing scents, Stephanie. As various elements of the scent volatilize and evaporate, they become perceptible then dissipate and some other element shows through until it, too, is replaced by the next one.

Roseseek so beautifully stated. One of the delights of roses and gardening in general is this ephemeral quality and the constant change.

It would be soooo much fun to get a bunch of us together to smell the same roses, at the same time, under the same conditions, and see what everyone's perception of the scents would be. No arguments allowed! Lol.

Or maybe I'm just bored right now because I'm trapped inside by the glorious rain we're getting...and supposed to get for the next three days. I'll take it. We've had nothing like drought, but May has been abnormally dry.