Adjective
Pronunciation:
Nice smelling. The opposite of kong’u.
Koropili especially applies to a freshly cleaned lmala prepared with ng’eriyoi or lorien. Also applies to any sweet-smelling wood, such as sandalwood. Locally, the leaves of nataraquoi [What is the botanic name? Leave your remarks in the Comments below] — a small tree or shrub that looks like ginger [fact check] and grows in mountains, such as the Mathews Range near Wamba — can be added to tea to make it smell nice.
Koropili is also used to refer to the various scents and perfumes used by the murran, and that girls add to their beads.
Return to Milk Taste and Texture terms.
This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel.
Published by William Rubel
I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.
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