How To Create The Smell Of Tea In Perfume
By Emmanuelle Moeglin, Founder & Perfumer · Classically trained at ISIPCA, 20 years in fragrance
Tea is a contemplative note, much like the drink itself. It brings a soothing, meditative quality to a fragrance, refreshing and uplifting, and it pairs beautifully with citruses and florals. Here is how perfumers capture it.
Tea is a contemplative note, much like the drink itself.
Tea around the world
Loved everywhere, tea has been with us for thousands of years, used first as a medicinal herb before it ever became a drink. It grows across the world, from Kenya and Sri Lanka to China and India, each origin with its own character. Assam, an Indian black tea, is dark with a hint of earthiness, while green tea, often from China, is lighter and more aqueous. Earl Grey, the British favourite, owes its distinctive citrus aroma to the addition of bergamot.
Brewed tea yields no usable oil, so tea is a fantasy the perfumer builds.
Creating a tea accord
A popular note in modern perfumery, tea is usually built as an accord, a "fantasy" interpretation, rather than extracted, since brewed tea yields no usable oil. The result gives an airy, soothing feel to a fragrance. Perfumers have several routes to it:
- Green tea can be suggested with maté absolute in small amounts. In its pure form maté smells closer to tobacco and hay than to the watery green tea of fragrances: a strong, dry, leafy paste that clings well to base notes and adds real refinement.
- Hedione, often called a transparent material, lends a luminous airiness. Combined with jasmine or herbaceous notes it creates that aqueous tea effect, which is why it appears in so many modern perfumes.
- Black tea calls for darker, woodier materials. To capture the smokiness of Lapsang Souchong, perfumers reach for birch tar, cade oil, resins and woods.
Tea sits close to the green notes of perfumery, and Hedione is one of the iconic synthetic molecules worth knowing.
Tea in an EPC scent: Soleil d'Hiver
You can smell exactly this in our Soleil d'Hiver, a rose in the frost. Cardamom and pink peppercorn open icy and crisp around a heart of Moroccan rose, cooled and held in check by oolong tea, with sandalwood, leather and tobacco glowing faintly underneath. The oolong does what tea does best in perfumery: it lends an airy, contemplative calm that keeps the rose from turning sweet, the quiet centre of the composition.
Frequently asked questions about tea in perfume
▾ What does tea smell like in perfume?
Airy, soothing and refreshing. It can be light and aqueous like green tea, or dark, woody and smoky like black tea, depending on how it is built.
▾ Is there real tea in perfume?
Rarely. Brewed tea yields no usable oil, so a tea note is almost always an accord, built from materials like maté absolute and molecules such as Hedione.
▾ What's the difference between green and black tea notes?
Green tea notes are light, fresh and aqueous; black tea notes are deeper, woodier and sometimes smoky, as in Lapsang Souchong.
▾ What is Hedione?
A transparent, airy molecule that brings a jasmine-tea radiance to a fragrance. It is one of the most widely used materials in modern perfumery.
▾ What pairs with tea notes?
Citrus, most famously bergamot in Earl Grey, along with florals like jasmine and fresh green notes.
▾ How do you wear a tea fragrance?
As a light, uplifting, calming scent. Tea notes are lovely for daytime and warm weather, and very easy to wear.
