Earl Grey

A cup of tea is, quite literally, a perfume accord in a cup. The leaves of Camellia sinensis must dry and oxidise before becoming tea, developing a distinctive aroma that is released only when brewed in hot water. Add bergamot to make Earl Grey, and the result is already a perfect olfactory pyramid.

How do you recreate this burst of aroma, flavour, and warmth as a perfume to wear? Well, that’s actually a surprisingly challenging task.

I started with Italian bergamot, the signature material of both traditional colognes and Earl Grey tea. I added an overdose of clary sage (also called musk sage), which brings a unique mix of woody, floral, and musty notes, much like black tea. Hay absolute, extracted from dried meadow hay, provides a long-lasting base note that is coumarinic and deeply pastoral. I added Helvetolide, a new-generation vegan musk that really smells like heat and also brings subtle, irresistible animalic nuances to the mix.

Especially for this fragrance, we also developed a unique extract from premium tea leaves grown near Lake Maggiore in Italy. It’s very strong, so I only needed a tiny amount to give the perfume its realistic tea character.

BLACK TEA ABSOLUTE (Camellia sinensis) grown on the shores of Lake Maggiore.

At Villa Anelli, in Oggebbio on the shores of Lake Maggiore, Camellia sinensis has been cultivated since 1872. Over six generations, the plant has adapted to the acidic soil and rainy local microclimate, giving rise to a unique ecotype: the "Verbano-Lago Maggiore Variety"—a tea with singular aromatic characteristics born from its symbiosis with the land.

The harvest is performed entirely by hand between April and June, selecting only the tender buds (pekoe). The yield is approximately 100 grams of dry tea per hour of labor. Compared to Asian plantations, the lakeside summer climate slows growth, reducing yield to 30% but ensuring excellent organoleptic quality.

The fresh leaf, with its herbaceous scent of freshly cut grass, undergoes steaming and is left to ferment and oxidize until it reaches its classic dark color. It is the final drying process that brings out the characteristic black tea notes and its aromatic complexity.

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Ingredients: Alcohol Denat., Parfum, Bergamot Oil (Citrus Aurantium Bergamia Peel Oil), Clary Sage Oil (Salvia Sclarea Oil), Italian Black Tea Absolute (Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract), Hay Absolute (Anthoxanthum Odoratum Extract), Benzoin Resin (Styrax Tonkinensis Resin Extract), Benzyl Benzoate, Beta Damascone, Cinnamic Acid, Cinnamal, Citral, Coumarin, Farnesol, Geraniol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Linalyl Acetate. Vegan

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