Tea for Two - l'Artisan Parfumeur

Tea just has to be one of the most comfortable and versatile scent notes around. It can be light and dainty, perfect with crustless cucumber sandwiches. Green tea goes from tasting like lightly toasted rice towards tasting like whole bales of hay, begging for something intensly sweet to cut through the astringency. And there is smoky tea, black tea, spicy tea, the list goes on and on. And, weirdly enough, most of them can, at some point, be detected while wearing Tea for Two.

First thing that happens when applying is a huge blast of smoky Lapsang Souchong. It's very intense and smoky but somewhere behind that smoke one can detect a balancing gormand note. To me it smells like biscuits. Dry, not very sweet, but with a smattering of vanilla added for flavour.

After an hour the smoke has faded and now we're having a very robust green tea. It tastes strongly of hay and unlit tobacco. The gormand note has also evolved, it's still sweet but it's also spicier now. Mabye there is gingerbread served with the tea?

Fast forward two more hours and most of the hay is gone. Now I get more of a regular, good quality black tea. It's served hot and a teaspoon of honey has slowly melted and been stirred into the cup.

At the extreme drydown all the tea and spices seem to meld together, forming a cup of nice, sweet Indian chai. The perfect warm, comfy ending of an intense day


I percieve Tea for Two more as a olfactorian recording of a series of nice moments than a classical perfume. It's amazing how it manages to morph from one cup of tea to the next. The notes seem to  swirl one around the other and I'm very intrigued how the sweetness first seem belong to the gourmand half of the scent, then in the tea. Same with the spices, first they go with the cake but thy end up in the chai. And its's not just an "interesting" scent, it smells very good indeed. I love it on cold winter days when you'd rather stay cuddled up under a blanket. And it's even better on days that I've anticipated as going to be rather bad. It's like carrying around a warm cuddly teddy bear, nudging you through any challenges out there that you'd rather not have known anything about.


Official notes from l'Artisan: ginger, smoked tea, honey

Notes from Fragrantica:
Top: bergamot, star anise, tea
Heart: cinnamon, ginger, spices
Base: honey, vanilla

Created by Olivia Giacobetti

Foto: http://old-photos.blogspot.com

Oolang Infini - Atelier Cologne

In order to write this blog post I've been thinking about how to describe the scent of tea. It's not that easy. The first note that comes to my mind is the citrus of Earl Grey teas. But that is, of course, not the tea itself but the bergamot used to add flavour and contrast. Then there is the smokiness of Lapsang Souchong, created by smoking the tea leaves in a bamboo basket over fire. Again, that's the smoke and not so much the tea in itself. Green tea does have a describable scent; slightly bitter dried grass and hay. But Oolang, also called blue tea as it is somewhere between green and black, not fully fermented, is hard to describe. The best I can come up with is as a "Me, but better version of hot water featuring elements of earth, astringency and bitterness". But we all know there is a lot more to a nice cup of tea than that. And fortunately it's all captured in the beautiful Oolang Infini by Atelier Cologne.

When smelling OI and thinking about the notes with the analytical part of my brain I'm getting some bergamot, tea and maybe a hint of lavender. But what I'm really experiencing are tears - in a good way. I'm not sure what brings this on, maybe the slightly astringent tannins present in the tea note remind me of that feeling after having had a good cry. Wet cheeks, swollen nose but now I've let it all out, it's time to pick up the pieces and move on.

I'm also reminded of rain filled skies on a damp and chilly day. The air is so thick it feels like breathing in cold fog through your mouth. But as the scent wears the weather clears up, sunshine breaks through. The memory of sadness is still lingering, but it's not sad any more. It grounds you, add to your experiences and helps you to stand your ground in this crazy world.

I like OI a lot, it's my favourite Atelier Cologne so far (I've not tried them all but I'm very impressed with the ones I've tried). The scent is subtle but pleasant, works great on both men and women and easily lasts a whole day.

Pics: chinahourly.com

Russian Caravan Tea by CB I Hate Perfume

It was CB I Hate Perfume that first took me from a person fleetingly interested in perfume to becoming a bit of an obsessive. I don't even remembered how I first heard about them, probably somewhere on the Internet. I read about Christopher Brosius and his approach to perfume making, about how he gets inspiration for his perfumes from incidents or places and before I knew it I had ordered something like 20 samples from the Perfumed Court and I've been an addict ever since then.

CB's scents are very much hit and miss, some are great, some are not for me but they are all interesting. The first one I fell in love with was "Russian Caravan Tea". The official description is "Smoked black Indian tea, bergamot and the hint of shelves full of old books".

On me it's not really like that. I get no trace of smoke and the bergamot is soft, not at all like the bergamot that flavours "Earl Grey" type of teas. It is lemony bordering on mandarin. The whole concoction smells like nice cup of English Breakfast Tea with some lemon in it to perk it up. It's a very comfy scent, wearing it is like first having a long shower, slipping into a bathrobe and then sitting down on the balcony in the sun, having brunch. It's also doesn't evolve very much. The citrus is a bit more pronounced in the beginning but apart from that everything stays pretty much the same.

The samples I've got are water based and I often read complaints bout that they are weak smelling and how they don't last for very long. It's true, they are weak and I think the longest time I've been able to feel a CB is for about 4 hours, they often disappear after 2. To me that is not such a big issue. I rather dab it on several times during a day than wearing myself out smelling to much from the start, but I suppose everybody feels a different way in this matter.

I'm rating it 4 out of 5. It's a comfy comfy comfy scent. When I think about it, it would probably be the perfect scent to wear when you know you're in for a terrible day at the office.

"Mandarin mandarine" by Serge Lutens

I'm a real sucker for the mandarin/black smoky tea combo. "Russian Caravan Tea" by "CB I Hate Perfume" is my favourite scent in the whole wide world. But unfortunately doesn't work out to well on my skin. It's  just to clean to make sense.

Therefore I great anticipations to sample Mandarin Mandarin. According to the internet the scent has top notes of Chinese orange and nutmeg; middle notes of candied mandarine orange peel and Lapsong-Souchong smoky tea; and base notes of rock rose, labdanum, Tonka bean and ambergris.

For me, the top notes were a very clear warm mandarin note, flanked by spices such as cumin and a general dark  brown smoky huskiness. I loved the start. No clean fruity fresh whatsoever, unusual in citrusy scents.

But then, something happened. The smoke vanished and the spices with it. Left was that mandarin note but now layered with a lilyish, garish, white flower note. I'm no fan of lilies. This was not what I had hoped for. I got the feeling like you've had a big night out and are desperately trying to brush your teeth in the morning and spraying room spray all around, pretending that all that stuff you kind of half remembered from the night before (that was actually great but you would never ever admit to that) never did happen. The scent of anxiety. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but anyway...

So I'm giving Mandarin - mandarine a 3 out of 5. The start was great, but the finish was just not something I'm going for.