MEMORIA, part two: tea perfumes

just promise me you won't spray them in your mouth

Whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, the aroma of a fresh cup of tea is instantly calming – something meditative. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately writing about incense, one of the first ritual smells, but if you define ritual as a system of actions from which meaning and identity freely flow, than the smell of tea is almost just as old as incense – both dating to around the year 3000 BC. In fact, I would argue just as humans have evolved to associate the smell of incense with the sanctified and the spiritual apart from common spaces – our generational scent memory has likewise evolved to associate tea with the sanctified and the spiritual within everyday routine. If incense is the smell of the sacred without, tea is the smell of the sacred within. So pull up an ornate chair, lean back into a well-worn couch, sit down seiza, or recline, and most importantly pour yourself a cup however you take it. Because hot, cold, over-steeped, or frothed with milk, these perfumes are sure to pierce your hectic day-to-day life, bring you a moment of much needed tranquility.

Chasing Scents, Tea Service

A heartfelt ode to hospitality and East Asian tradition, Australian boutique house Chasing Scents is entirely devoted to capturing the different smells of tea – and their well-lauded bestseller Tea Service delivers as promised, a photorealistic cup of the jasmine varietal. Utilizing direct extractions from loose leaf strains of both jasmine and oolong tea leaves, upon application one can practically smell the steam rising from delicate porcelain serving cups. Never before Tea Service have I smelled a fragrance able to capture the specific bitter, indolic, steamy, and astringent facets that come with the real life opening of Chinese floral teas under high heat. Sandy Wong – doctor of chemistry turned head perfumer of Chasing Scents – has clearly trained via both professional and personal experience in the intricacies of these smells, and approaches recreating them with all the reverence and detail of a true artist. Utilizing tinctures and soxhlet extractions among traditional accord-based methods, I believe her results speak for themselves. Subtle in their arrangement of damp fruity-floral notes, the distinctly recognizable opening soon gives way to a blend of mellow osmanthus and peach, settling into the skin for a short-lived but evocative spell. Calling to mind precious memories of warm dim sum with friends on cold winter days, wear Tea Service to entertain traveling guests of noble pedigree in your Qing Dynasty imperial palace, or just to fall asleep dreaming of something warm.

L'Artisan Parfumeur, Tea for Two

I am beginning to become convinced it is impossible for me to write an article on this blog without including a perfume made by Olivia Giacobetti. I swear I don’t do this on purpose, it just always seems like wherever my nose is drawn, she appears. That said, as Passage d’Enfer is to incense, her early creation for the same house of L'Artisan Parfumeur – Tea for Two – is one of the foundational tea scents released on the advent of the new millennium, following the enigmatic jasmine The Pour Un Ete. Similar to Passage, moreover, it is not without its controversies. Interestingly enough, unlike Passage, its delicacy is not among them. On my skin this is one of the strongest performing scents on this list – populated mostly with citrus-based herbal notes that by their very nature do not last long on skin. This effect can likely be attributed to the very prominent tobacco note, which both defines the pastoral atmosphere of its profile, and can carry a bitterness that scares away those looking for a straightfoward cup of soothing tea. When first sprayed, I find the oversteeped, somewhat spoiled nature of this damp tobacco note is at its most prominent – perhaps augmented by anise. Mere seconds after application, however, the scent settles down into a gorgeous cup of black tea amidst ginger, honey, and spice. Conjuring up nostalgic images of autumn mornings spent with your pipe-smoking grandfather, one can easily envision the smell of languidly reading the daily paper between sips of Turkish tea. I always find myself reaching for this bottle when the first brisk winds of fall hit my skin. Pushing the boundary between atmospheric and gourmand, this perfume is a piece of history you can wear to impress the old men playing chess in your local public park.

Maison Margiela, Tea Escape (and Matcha Meditation)

I have written briefly in past communiqués about the politics of green tea scents, more specifically the Orientalist fantasy they often hinge on selling, and perhaps most indicative of this trend is the popular Replica series by the house of Margiela releasing a green tea scent, and then inexplicably replacing it with a much worse scent that barely smells of tea. The original Tea Escape, now discontinued and almost as if not more difficult to find as my beloved Lipstick On, was for a designer perfume, quite a good evocation of tea. The matcha here has a creamy facet, supported with a base note of milk, and an interestingly refreshing minty finish. This is less a ceremonial grade genmaicha tea and more a neon green matcha latte from a brightly lit cafe in Shibuya. Still though, bottles of this now rare demi-gourmand are worth actively seeking out. Its modern replacement, Matcha Meditation, not only has a worse name, but smells more of candied jasmine than anything related to tea. A crucial reformulation from tea escape is the base note, which has been changed from a more rice-like mellow milk to an overpoweringly sweet white chocolate accord. I struggle to see how this effect is even communicated in the scent, I smell more cotton candy than creaminess. In fact, I would say that Matcha Meditation smells more like Killian’s long-winded and equally cheesy I Don't Need A Prince By My Side To Be A Princess – which similarly pairs a sweet tea accord with gourmand marshmallow. Honestly, I prefer Princess. If you’re looking to pay a hundered dollars for a strangely marketed powdery jasmine, I guess you can buy this – but you’re better off just walking to the next shelf at Sephora and buying Gucci Bloom. I heard this is also possibly getting discontinued, which seems about right. Ashes to ashes, mate to mate.

Parfum Satori, Hyouge

Perhaps the most underrated perfume on this list, I have been a fan of the work of Japanese boutique perfumer Satori Osawa’s personal house Parfum Satori for a while now. I love her conceptual framework – she stocks a carefully curated line of intentionally difficult answers to traditional imperial traditions of “oriental” perfumes. Intentionally composed challenges to decisively orientalist standards of scent is an extremely promising avenue for contemporary fragrance, and one I would like to see explored far more frequently. Her composition Hyouge is one Japanese perfumer’s answer to the question of a Japanese green tea perfume. Instead of focusing on the gourmand, creamy aspects of ground matcha, Osawa instead flips this dynamic on its head by capturing the springy, green, and watery scent of the tea shrub before harvesting. Hyouge is crisp, sweet, and green-powdery in a similar vein to the classical Chanel No 19 Poudre – opening with a blast of stemmy tea leaves and drying down to a bubblegummy slightly cosmetic mix of jasmine, delicate iris, and violet. Wear this to a tea farm in shizuoka prefecture, or just to find a more tasteful way to smell like matcha.

J-Scent, Roasted Green Tea

Another Japanese answer to the green tea perfume question, but this time with much more international appeal. The house of J-Scent is a Tokyo-based, LA-headquarted company making perfumes inspired by recognizable aspects of Japanese culture. I think to me their roster can often be hit or miss – I have written previously about my love for Hanamizake, and also very much enjoy the likes of Yawahada and Paper Soap. Others, like Hisui, Rakugan, and Yuzu fall short in my eyes. That said Roasted Green Tea is certainly their most popular offering, and for good reason. It treads new ground on the olfactory territory as well, by truly leaning into roasted as the operative word. I’ve talked about this with multiple born and bred southerners, and can confirm that to my nose, the opening of this perfume is the closest thing I’ve found in perfume to the smell of boiled peanuts. There’s a savory creaminess in the beginning that then begins to blend into a more realistic hojicha smell. This perfume doesn’t linger long, but into the drydown the nuttiness recedes and a more gourmand vanilla base note dominates the central tea accord. If you’re looking for the smell of genmaicha – a varietal of green tea containing roasted popped brown rice, this is it par excellence. The addition of peanuts to conjure the specific nuttiness of fresh rice was in my eyes, a genius decision. The savory profile of this scent is sure to make even the most staunch of “matcha smells like grass” heretics’ mouth water.

Comme des Garçons, Nomad Tea

While technically this scent is by a Japanese house, and attempts to invoke the image of green tea, I think this scent functions much more like a heavily sugared cup of moroccan mint tea. Herbal artemisa pairs with spearmint in the opening to evoke a steamy and cooling sort of over-steeped effect, then it promptly dries down to a sweet and green mix of tea and sugar. This is an extremely wearable (and affordable I might add) option for those who want to smell like tea, but find the bitter and astringent profile of most scents on this list unbecoming. I’ve found that among the people I know who have made this easygoing scent their signature, the honeyed, distinctively global profile has come to blend in with their personality. Wear this to skip happily to your nearest asian fusion bistro, or just to skate around California smelling like a spoonful of good vibes.

Elizabeth Arden, Green Tea

This is very likely, strictly by numbers, the most popular tea perfume of all time. Also, did you know this was composed by Francis Kurkdjian of Baccarat Rouge fame? I think among the clean, citrusy scents that came in the wake of 80s neo-gothic powerhouses to dominate the dawn of the new millennium, this is the best. Surprisingly subtle for something so designer-oriented, the opening’s zingy citrus blast evolves to a crunchy sort of green-floral melange of jasmine and lipton tea. People call this perfume soapy in a derogatory sense, but I think to me it wears soapy in a calming sense. Given its price and accessibility, I find it so easy to reach for a bottle of Green Tea for something fresh out of the shower, or energizing to start your day. Perfect for something spa-like and not too strong your grandmother will approve of, yet still sophisticated enough to appeal to well-worn perfume snobs.

Nishane, Wulóng Chá

From what I’ve seen, Nishane’s frontrunner Wulóng Chá might be the second most popular tea perfume of the present moment. Themed after a spiced cup of oolong tea, I find for me this is far more of an orange-zest take on mellow fig, which is always sure to please palates. Very summer oriented, this is actually quite similar to Green Tea, inasmuch as a juicy citrus blast up front heralds the arrival of a more mellow green smell. Only this time, jasmine is replaced with sweet fig, and the drydown speaks more to a fairly linear and short-lived fruity freshness. Some people gripe that tea takes a backseat in this composition, but I do find the floral notes of oolong to be blended quite well into the larger picture. While they don’t smell entirely similar, I think of this perfume alongside offerings like Vilhelm’s Dear Polly and Byredo’s Mixed Emotions – perfumes that aim to introduce a tea note among more palatable profiles to people who might not necessarily enjoy the smell of tea. That said, my chances to smell this perfume have been somewhat fleeting and mostly in winter – I would relish the chance to give this scent a proper wear on a hot summer’s day.

Prissana, Dunhuang (敦煌)

Evoking the mixed smells of the ancient silk road trading route, Prin Lormos’ Dunhuang (敦煌) is tea amongst myriad spices and incense – a true oriental. Its ambitions are bold – featuring a long notes list including jasmine and lapsang souchong teas, kumquat, osmanthus, tangerine, cumin, cinnamon, anise, sandalwood, and plum. I will admit, I adore the smell of osmanthus when used well in perfumery, and am often drawn to its fleshy and apricot-like smell in larger compositions. I think Lormos’ use of it here is supplemented by prominent cinnamon, caraway, and cloves. I can very much envision this being the smell of a weary traveler’s yield from the eastern continent, but do thing at times the breadth of its scope dampers what appear to be really fascinating accords. I wish that aside from Lormos’ typical animalic DNA, the incense, osmanthus, kumquat, and tea were given more room to shine. Maybe I just want this perfume to be similar to the next one on this list, because I miss it so much. Oh well, that very well might be the case.

Diptyque, Kimonanthe

If you put your hand over the parts of Eau Duelle EDT that are reminiscent of tea, Kimonanthe was the house of Diptyque’s true off-kilter take on the East Asian tea palate. Inspired by the smell of zukoh, or perfumed incense powder carried by Buddhist monks, this perfume is among my favorite fruity smells of all time, because it was given the space to be so deeply camphoric. The principal notes here are osmanthus, straight camphor, incense, and leather. Tea is not even technically listed, but I think the intersection between fruity and steeped osmanthus and spice evokes a medicinal tea wonderfully. My adoration for Kimonanthe lies on the simple fact that as a child, I loved the taste of cough syrup. You will inevitably find people in comments sections saying this perfume smells like cough drops, like yucky purple medicine, like Chinese homeopathic remedies forced on children with the common cold – perhaps. The truth is, this perfume smells like straight tiger balm mixed with incense smoke and steaming hot herbal tea, and I cannot get enough. Strangely enough, there is a certain sharp and tropical aspect of the eucalyptus found in Ropion’s Carnal Flower that I also detect here. That said, I truly do not think anything else in perfumery smells close to this. It’s rare that I cannot draw up an immediate constellation of references for a given fragrance, but the medicinal profile of Kimonanthe is that unique. Now is also the time where I have to break the news to you that this perfume has been discontinued for almost two years. If anyone reading this article has a bottle they are willing to sell to me, I will pay an irresponsible amount of money to be reunited with her again. I have roughly five sprays of this perfume left in my tiny sample vial I have clung to forever, and I don’t think I will ever spray it again until I can finally book that solo trip to Japan. Otherwise, it’s not worth wasting.

Le Labo, Thé Noir (and Thé Matcha)

Even though it is barely black tea and is mostly tobacco bay leaves and fig, I actually really do enjoy Thé Noir. Perhaps the most popular and status-laden perfume by Le Labo to actually deserve the hype, this is a great unisex option for women looking to smell intimidating and men looking to smell addictively comforting. Indeed there is a certain aspect of how tea is used here that I really do think endows this perfume with an addictive, can’t spray it enough quality. Among all the perfumes I wear routinely, this one has garnered me some of the most compliments. It lasts all day and covers you in a damp cloud of tepid spice, dry cedarwood, and sweet lactonic fig. This is Le Labo’s Philoskyos – a fig rendered in their distinct style, which is to say undoubtedly urban-minded gender-ambiguous and loud. I often think that within the realm of niche fragrance, the quality of your houses' fig perfume will dictate your degree of commercial success. Needless to say the faux fruit here is treated with damp tobacco, sweet spices, and a black tea accord more dry hay than earl grey. I will also say, if you don’t mind shoveling coal in the vapid maw of the dupe industrial complex, you can get a smell similar to this for much cheaper – but like Byredo Black Saffron and other cooler-than-thou art school dropouts, it says something about how nose-catching and unique this smell is that so many people are now seeking to copy it.

The closest thing to a trendy flanker Le Labo could possibly release, there is very little matcha in their Thé Matcha, but rather the same cedar-fig as Thé Noir now rendered grassy, powdery, and laden in comforting skin-scent citrus. I actually wear this all the time as well, because again, it’s really difficult to not earnestly enjoy this smell. This one also lasts multiple days on my skin for some reason – even though it does not share the same projection as its brooding older sister. Into the drydown a very powdered sort of green tea emerges from the leftover grassy fig and vetiver. I find myself reaching for both of these scents whenever I throw on a comfy sweater and am looking for something to nuzzle myself into on a cold and rainy day.

Jovoy, Remember Me

Speaking of, perhaps the most comforting of all rainy day tea scents is Jovoy’s Remember Me. Like the perfect cup of black tea sweetened with milk - Remember Me is a meditative and comforting gourmand from a Parisian house that normally paints in deep, abiding resins. The lactonic profile here deserves to be put amongst the greats – like Lait Concentré and Crema di Latte – it is buttery, thick, and vanilla-laden. The bitter and resinous profile of cardamom is also a major player, endowing the central tea note with a distinctly middle-eastern sensibility. Somewhat similar to Poesie’s rice-pudding Madar, this is a sophisticated take on chai-adjacent creamy breakfast tea. Like watching spring snow slowly fall from your window, I wear this for a day spent studying in quaint cafés.

Poesie, Twice to Tea

Of the most realistic of the western-style teas, Twice to Tea evokes the distinctly British pursuit of afternoon teatime – pinkies extended and a cup of earl grey in hand. Opening with a blast of camphor and settling down into thick, heady black tea sweetened with a dash of milk, one can practically smell the steam rising off the top of this perfume oil. Poesie themselves have released a line of real loose leaf tea, one even somewhat similar to the notes of this perfume, so it does not surprise me they are able to replicate the nuances of this anglophile scent profile so handily. This is one of my favorite scents to wear to bed, as while the performance is quite delicate as is often characteristic of a perfume oil, I could imagine its extremely herbal scent profile might be off-putting to some. To me, however, I find this a charming option for those looking to have their arms smell like they just flipped over a table at a tea party without any of the scalding burns or upset children.

Serge Lutens, Five O'Clock Au Gingembre

An interesting addition to Lutens’ wide oeuvre, Gingembre is actually not really gingerbread at all (that would be Bapteme de Feu). Instead, it is literally ginger, as in sushi-grade spice, hidden among candied cinnamon and tea. The effect it has on skin can lean somewhat colonge-like due to a heart note of black pepper, but upon first spray, it is all black tea sweetened with a dash of honey. A perhaps exceedingly cozy scent, it feels downright blasphemous to wear this in the spring and summer months. I do often feel as if this type of Lutens doesn’t carry the unique charm of something like Jeux de Peau, but if you’re in the market for a bare bones tea and spice scent, you can’t go wrong hunting down a bottle of this off mercari.

Masque Milano, Russian Tea (and Lost Alice)

Russian Tea to me is interesting, because rather than reference the specific smell of Slavic varietals of tea, it chooses to depict a more generic tea alongside Russian leather, a longstanding convention in fragrance starting with Ernest Beaux’s 1924 Cuir de Ruisse for the house of Chanel. The tea here is somewhat minty, colored with raspberry preserve. The counterpoint, however, is a dry acerbic leather, heightened with smoky birch tar and incense. This is perhaps nightly tea, taken by the fireplace and sipped on contemplatively. An interesting, slightly left of masculine artifact for those who take their coffee black, and want a tea perfume that eschews all sweetness.

Lost Alice is a clever turn of phrase, and an adorable gourmand delight on skin. Clearly inspired by the world of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, this is an olfactory glimpse into the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Mellow carrot from the white rabbit and clean orris are dunked in a swimming pool of milk, all yielding down to a frothy sort of black tea – not unlike Remember Me – if it were made into a flavor of boba. I vastly prefer this to Masque’s other milk gourmand, the overbearingly sweet Madeleine, and would recommend it to curious children and whimsical adults alike.

Creed, Silver Mountain Water

I will preface this by saying David Bowie was known to buy this perfume, so it is very hard for me to be partial imagining smelling anything on his body. But I will do my best, because to be frank I do not often abide with the outspokenly patriarchal house of Creed. This is masculine, perhaps, only in the way that something like Montale’s Boise Fruite is – but the dominant profile is very cooling and fresh. It opens with a very Colonge-like citrus melange of bergamont and orange, then saunters speedily into a galbanum-laden green tea accord. Less green tea as in Japanese matcha and more tea, that happens to smell green, SMW dries down into a very gender ambiguous fruity musk – parading a short-lived procession of cassis, petitgrain, and sandalwood before disappearing in a matter of hours. I can see this belonging not on Bowie the eccentric 70s artist, but Bowie the tasteful intellectual father – spending his older years between chic New York bistros and weekly hotels in Milan. This is the kind of tea perfume you smell on someone who can Provide, and while at times it does lean into Light Blue fresh ozonic-ness to the point of exhaustion, it’s something simple, clearly status-laden, and cosmopolitan to not let your mind get distracted when it is contemplating larger artistic goals.

Escentric Molecules, Molecule 01 Black Tea

I’ll be honest I was not expecting to like this one. The other flankers to the historic and wildly successful Molecule 01 do not offer anything more to the sole Iso E Super formula I find worth buying over the original. This one, however, compliments the sheer woodiness of Molecule 01 with a unique overdose of maté tea absolute – smelling less like proto-Another 13 and more like Olivia Giacobetti’s No. 01 L’Eau Argentine. The tea here is not gourmand, it has a green and citrusy resonance to it that smells dampened by scalding water. Perhaps more than any of the other variants on this theme, I think the added smell here actually takes over the profile, smelling like an entirely different perfume. Paired with the insane performance of such a large quantity of Iso E Super, a synthetic ambergris molecule now mere-inescapable in modern perfumery, you now have an easy reach that is sure to garner you both frequent compliments and a cosmopolitan air about you.

Hima Jomo, Winter in Manaslu

Like a perfectly spiced cup of comforting mint tea, Hima Jomo’s Winter in Manaslu is bracing, hitting the nose with a cooling and herbal effect instantly. Themed after a mountainous Nepalese settlement, I find this formula universal enough to survive divorced from its geographical referents. I think oftentimes mint can get a bad wrap in perfumery, because it is often used either to create hyper-spicy barbershop cologne type smells, or it leans too pastel bubblegum. Here it is neither, instead spraying on deeply herbaceous, green, and steamed. As the perfume drys down, facets of sage and anise become more noticeable, adding to the general tea-like feeling. What remains after these accords fade is a somewhat sweet coniferous wood, blending pine and cedar into a very winter-like aura of comfort. Like clouded breath on brisk morning air during the delicate hours after a snowstorm, I would pack Winter in Manaslu for a mountaineering expidition, or just to escape to a wintertime airbnb in Aspen.

Baruti, Chai

I won’t say this is my favorite tea perfume of all time, but it is without a doubt the best chai tea perfume I’ve ever smelled. The brainchild of Greek neurosurgeon turned perfumer Spyros Drosopoulos, this is not a venti chai latte from an American coffee shop, but rather a hot cup of masala chai from a street market in India. When first sprayed, this perfume opens with a stunningly realistic frothed milk accord, that is sure to instantly win over most people outright. I’ve gotten the most incredible reactions from showing my friends the opening of this perfume – its downright delicious lactonic profile is guaranteed to make even the most devoted of black coffee drinkers smile just a little bit. As the perfume evolves, however, the milk recedes into the background, and a melange of spices, chiefest among them cinnamon and cardamom, begin to overwhelm the nose. One of my favorite things about this perfume (and most Baruti extraits) is how strong it is. It quite literally had to be reformulated into an eau de parfum because people were complaining, but luckily those among us with taste can still buy the extrait. A rarity for tea perfumes, a few sprays of this will envelop you with the comforting aroma of spiced black tea for the entire day. Often I will hear people say the added notes of ginger, clove, and leather make this perfume too pungent, give it more of an edge. Needless to say I prefer my gourmands this way, and hardly consider it inaccessible given how endearing the sweet milk accord comes off. If I were to assemble the perfect fall capsule fragrance wardrobe, this would be the first thing I include. I’ve coveted a full bottle of this for the longest time, but indecision between potentially buying another Baruti, the tart and lipsticky Dama Koupa, has kept me gridlocked for years now. Needless to say, this comes highly recommended for anyone looking to acquire a hyperrealistic chai tea perfume. Its aroma is proof par excellence that tea perfumes have the power to bring us comfort and warmth in a way that feels primordial, deep-seated in the way that only something as pre-conceptual as your sense of smell can scratch.

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‘Eat your Lipstick’ is a perfume blog by Audrey Robinovitz, @foldyrhands

Audrey Robinovitz is a multidisciplinary artist, scholar, and self-professed perfume critic. Her work intersects with the continued traditions of fiber and olfactory arts, post-structural feminism, and media studies. At this very moment, she is most likely either smelling perfume or taking pictures of flowers.