I’ve been on a bit of a tea journey recently, creating my own blends to sell in a new cafe at the back of my fragrance shop. Getting the taste right has been remarkably similar to making perfume – combining the elements to get just the right mix. In my view, the tea itself should be the main event; it should never be drowned out by other aromatic additions.
— Perfumer Lyn Harris of Miller Harris talks about blending teas in Make tea to a tea at the UK Times Online.
Getting to know civet as a fragrance note can make you gag. Put some costus roots under your nose one fine morn and you may skip breakfast. “Investigating” ginger, doing your ginger homework, is more pleasant: take a crisp ginger root and rub it between your fingers, bruise it with your fingernail, and inhale its lively and clean aroma (bite into the root for added credit); smell and taste yellow powdered ginger; slowly chew a piece of sticky, candied ginger; drink an old fashioned spicy ginger ale; and finally, eat a moist slice of warm gingerbread, straight from the oven, washed down with a ginger infusion, made using boiling water and sliced ginger root (sugar and milk optional). You are now ready to recognize ginger in fragrance.
In his Five O’Clock Au Gingembre Eau de Parfum, Serge Lutens places candied (not fresh) ginger in a tea-time setting and surrounds it with foody notes…
Gigi, described as a “grand gardenia sans the drama”, is the latest fragrance release from indie all-natural brand Ayala Moriel:
Gigi is the newest adition to the Ayala Moriel's Language of Flowers soliflore collection. It is a gardenia soliflore that is lighthearted and at the same time voluptuous. The rare smoothness of Mysore sandalwood lays the foundation for a gardenia illusion…
As promised, a green tea follow-up to last weekend's post on scented rooibos teas. This will be our last post until Wednesday. If you're celebrating Christmas, have a perfect holiday and I hope Santa is very good to you. If you're not celebrating Christmas, enjoy the temporary respite from rampant commercialism.
As I said last week, I drink a lot of green tea. Most of the green teas I buy are unscented/unflavored, but I do have a cup of jasmine tea every day, and floral-scented or fruity teas are nice to have around in the afternoon. Here are a few favorites…
I have a number of addictions. Perfume comes first (of course); tea is probably a close second. I drink green tea all day long, sometimes as many as 8-9 cups. I taper off the green tea around 5 or 6 pm and switch to various herbal blends. Rooibos tea (pronounced “ROY-bus”, aka red bush tea) is one of my favorite evening teas.
Rooibos is available in a green (un-oxidized) form, but is more usually sold oxidized, and the color of the leaves (and the steeped product) is a deep reddish-brown. It's caffeine-free and rich in antioxidants; more importantly, it tastes good. Wikipedia describes the taste as sweet and slightly nutty, I would describe it as smooth and woody, almost bark-like. You can drink it plain, but it blends beautifully with all sorts of fruits, flowers and spices, and perfume fans who love getting samples in the mail will be happy to hear that many tea merchants have sampling programs. Here are a few scented varieties of rooibos worth trying…