Black tea

Tea is the smell of a pause. Black tea in particular, with its dry, leathery, faintly smoky warmth, smells of an afternoon that has slowed down. In my chapters it is the material that gives a heart a place to sit.

What black tea is

Black tea comes from the leaves of Camellia sinensis, withered, rolled and fully oxidised until they turn dark and develop the malty, leathery, tannic warmth that green tea never has. In perfumery the tea note is a delicate thing to capture, because the leaf gives up its scent to hot water far more readily than to any solvent. Our black tea is a natural extract composition, a material built from natural components to give the true character of the brewed leaf: warm, dry, leathery, with a sweet edge and a faint smoke.

Where black tea grows

Because the material is a composition rather than a single extraction from a single garden, our formula books record no country of origin, and I print none. The tea plant grows across the hills of Asia from India to China and beyond, and the character of black tea belongs to all of them. The house rule is simple: where no origin is written down, none is claimed.

How black tea smells

Warm, leathery, tobacco like black tea with a sweet edge. It is dry and slightly tannic, with a soft smokiness and a malty sweetness underneath, and it gives a composition a sense of stillness.

Black tea in our chapters

• IHayalThe Crown · in the heart

  In Hayal it sits in the heart beside neroli and cinnamon, the cup of tea beneath the blossom that gives the crown its afternoon.

• IIINéroli de NuitThe Blossom · in the heart

  In Néroli de Nuit it is the dry warmth among the night flowers, the tea that keeps the blossoms from becoming sweet.

A note from the atelier

I put tea beside orange blossom twice, in the crown and in the blossom chapter, because the two have always belonged together. A neroli without tea is a garden; with tea it is a garden with a table in it.

Questions about black tea