Tea notes are among the more mysterious elements in the perfumer's organ, and I've always been intrigued by them. I own several fragrances where tea is a central feature, some of which are my favorites, and all of which I would buy again. Here, I want to explore what tea means in perfumery terms, as the note is far from monolithic, with many twists and varieties found in both mainstream and niche compositions.
In my collection, the most successful rendition of tea is probably found in Thé Brun by Jean-Charles Brosseau, a 2005 creation by Pierre Bourdon aimed at the niche crowd. This was a semi-retired Bourdon playing with ideas that '90s designers had rejected or overlooked, such as his now-famous pineapple note, which he paired with an ethereal, salty accord distantly related to his earlier Millésime Impérial for Creed. To me, this fragrance captures an Earl Grey type of black tea with remarkable accuracy, featuring the distinct bergamot of Earl Grey followed by a creamy "brown tea" note reminiscent of a morning tipple with milk. The tea note persists throughout the fragrance's life, from the first spray to the far drydown five hours later. While I'm not particularly impressed with the rest of the pyramid, I find the tea note grounding, calming, and serene.
Bourdon, like his teacher Edmond Roudnitska, revered Japanese art and tradition, drawing inspiration from the orientalism of the 20th-century Old Masters. There are whispers of floral sweetness—perhaps cherry blossom?—and a faint woodiness under the salinity, like a garden near the sea. The black tea, diluted to a warm brown, shimmers in a cup at dawn. These impressions are evoked by the fragrance, and at no point does Thé Brun feel ordinary or trite; I am certain I've never smelled anything like it. Unlike most tea fragrances, Bourdon didn't disguise a white floral note with lemon to call it tea; his tea is literal, a refreshing and realistic effect, like spilling Tetley on my collar. Although Thé Brun has not been well-received by everyone (one female coworker wrinkled her nose and said, "Not a good one, Bryan"), I like it.
If Thé Brun is a placid Earl Grey, Alyssa Ashley's Green Tea is a verdant spin on the theme. Dirt cheap and probably the least compelling tea fragrance in my collection, it is still a satisfying wear, largely due to the interesting pairing of lavender with papery gunpowder green notes. The fragrance smells aromatic, dank, and slightly stale—but intentionally so. I've compared it to the smell of pool or pond water, that green, murky scent of water infused with botanicals. In 2002, this was Alyssa Ashley jumping on the green tea bandwagon, which had kicked off almost a decade earlier with Bvlgari's Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1993) by Jean-Claude Ellena. The fragrance feels fresh, bright, eccentric.
Here, the tea note isn't as relaxing but more of an abstraction for the nose to play with. At times, it smells a bit chemical until I realize that the lavender doesn't always blend well with the other aromatics, as if it wants to dominate. This isn't a lavender fragrance—it's a tea fragrance, and while lavender has its own calming properties, green tea possesses a serene stillness when it cuts through flanking accords. Thus, the fragrance manages to smell tense, with the crisp aromatics, citruses, and a cold, perhaps forgotten green tea note pulling at my senses.
When I'm in the mood for a '90s pop of unisex-leaning-feminine tea, I reach for a fragrance that wasn't made in the '90s: Elie Tahari's signature feminine from 2019, a buoyant fruity-floral brimming with notes of sweet pear, tart bergamot, green apple, and what reads as a bergamot-infused green tea, with that crisp sour citrus element carrying most of the plot. Elie Tahari's tea note isn't about meditative seclusion from the world; it wants its wearer to feel sunny and happy, and the fruit notes are so in-your-face that feeling down is nearly impossible while wearing this scent. Composed by Nicole Mancini and Rodrigo Flores-Roux (although "composed" may be a stretch since AI has been signing briefs since at least 2016), it smells like an unused mod for a Bvlgari tea entry that the perfumers freshened up and repurposed for the brand.
I like Elie Tahari, but it wears rather "thick" and oily on me, smelling weirdly dense and unzipped, as if it needs a few extra hours to open up and truly shine. This could be because the fragrance is blended almost to an extreme; the typically standoffish notes of pear and apple somehow merge to create a new type of fruit, rendered to stunning effect. Instead of a standard pear note, they chose the exotic lushness of Doyenné du Comice pear, which smells heavenly against the backdrop of magnolia blossom and tea. The quality of materials is surprisingly high for the price (you can get a bottle for less than $20 if you play your cards right), and the tea note is the central spine that holds all this frivolity together. A few sprays on your collar, and it's 1999 again.
To me, tea is a spiritual note, something felt more than smelled, with a naturally quiet and monastic aroma. CK One is an oddly spiritual take on tea, blending green and the rarely-used white tea note—a very soft, almost powdery-musky variant of the leaf. It remains one of Calvin Klein's finest perfumes. There are ten-ounce bottles of CK One on eBay, and I'm inclined to purchase one. I wore this scent today and realized it is masterful and unforgettable, a fragrance that immediately transports me to a jetty on a foggy lake, with glassy water at early dawn, an hour before the sun rises. Everything is colorless and still. The roses and orange blossoms of a nearby garden carry on the faintest breeze, pulling with them the many essences of the greens growing by the water and the distinct bite of cedar from the wilderness beyond. A morning frozen in time.
Here, tea is brushed into the artistic body of the perfume in a way that both mutes and magnifies its scent; the greenness is fresh, but the dryness of the tea leaf is still present, while the white tea sends a snowy veil of watery freshness across the woody florals. Several potent white musks support this fragrance, and while I'm not usually a fan of them, I make an exception here. CK One smells like a dream but also captures the essence of its niche—a Gen-Xer's scent of the day, if that day is an eternal Saturday with plenty of time to kill at Borders Books before a matinee with a date.
Speaking of dates, Chez Bond is an interesting throwback tea frag in that Bond took the basic structure of Green Irish Tweed (lemon verbena, violet leaf, iris, sandalwood) and transformed it into a semi-gourmand flavor of tea. The lemon twist one might add to morning tea replaces the lemon verbena, and instead of powdery iris and sweet violet, there's a milky-smooth sweetness of sugared black tea that lasts for five to eight hours. Chez Bond is fairly linear and isn't in my collection (yet), but aside from some off-putting minty notes in the first five minutes, I like it. It's one of Bond's better compositions, even though it clearly riffs on the Creed. How does it make me feel? Green Irish Tweed feels very '80s and formal, but because Bond went for a warm mug effect, Chez Bond feels more early 2000s and hipster-ish—something clever and comfy to wear while book shopping in Soho.
Abstraction in perfumery is becoming rarer, with perfumers increasingly opting for intense and overtly clunky orientals and chypres, especially in the upper-bracket of the niche market. If you want an abstracted green tea note, Azzaro's Chrome Legend takes the vibe to a definite 2000s place. I find Legend to be a bit of a paradox; the perfume is unique and, to date, never imitated, yet it is little more than a great big house accord welded to a heavily pixelated jasmine. Overlaid with white florals is a disjointed green tea note, which emerges intermittently as the loud aquatics simmer and fizz. Green apple is perhaps the most approachable note here, yet the green tea seems determined to be the star, consistently playing off the sweeter jasmine to give Legend the aura of futuristic suntan lotion. Not the most relaxing green tea, but intellectually stimulating and well-crafted. I still have a couple of ounces left, and this one is popular with women.
Lastly, perhaps the most beautiful fragrance in my collection is the celestial Supremacy in Heaven by Afnan. This is one of the most irresistibly gorgeous scents, likely one of four or five masterpieces I've come across in the past fifteen years. I hope to the supreme heavens that they never discontinue it. Marketed as a clone of Silver Mountain Water with a few drops of Aventus, the more I wear it, the more I feel this is just a lazy marketing ploy by Afnan's top brass. The Supremacy series has several popular entries, and I'm open to trying the others, but even if I don't, I can die very happy, as this is a tea scent for the ages. I'm constantly surprised that this perfume isn't getting more buzz online, but maybe that's a good thing. Afnan's scent packs are very reasonable, and their quality control is generally high, so I would suggest picking up a bottle (it's only $25-$30 on eBay).
If Silver Mountain Water represents a cold green tea note undercut by metallic ozone, Supremacy in Heaven is the dark blackcurrant twist, with the freshness of white tea writ large across the evening sky. There's a pale iris here too, as if the perfumer wanted to give his tea note a slightly floral edge, reminiscent of how Mugler Cologne imbued its floral soap with a white-green jasmine leaf. Whether there is actual tea in this composition is debatable, but it smells like a mug of silver needle left to cool in a Japanese teahouse. In the buzz, Supremacy in Heaven sounds like a cheap clone of a Creed fragrance, but I find that my heart has abandoned Silver Mountain Water almost entirely in favor of this—and I don't think I've ever preferred a "clone" to its predecessor before. (Spoiler alert, I love SMW too, and consider it a masterpiece.)
All in all, tea in fragrance remains something I find indispensable. The purity and peacefulness it can bring to the wearer through scent are unmatched.