Tea for Two (2000)
by L'Artisan Parfumeur

Although I'm not a big fan of L'Artisan, this has to be the best tea scent I've come across so far. While other tea scents smell either unappealing or too synthetic, Tea for Two is a beautifully balanced composition. As others have already mentioned, it's a spicy, cosy and smoky tea scent that is probably best worn on mild days.

The only gripe I have with it (and with other L'Artisans) is its lack of complexity and depth – if Tea for Two was richer and stronger, it would be in my wardrobe immediately.

It's still worthy of a thumbs-up, though.

[Original submission date: 15 April 2008]

My thoughts on Tea for Two have evolved significantly since I first tried it. In 2007 I wrote:

“Wow! The smoky Lapsang Souchong tea is remarkably real here! Maybe too real.

I love Lapsang Souchong tea, but I want to drink it, not wear it. Would be great as a room scent.”

Now I’m more than willing to wear it. The smoky tea is potable without a doubt, but it’s the brilliantly translucent oriental structure underneath that makes this scent so special. It is a particularly fine example of Olivia Giacobetti’s talent for illuminating olfactory spaces normally shrouded in darkness. (See her Idole de Lubin for another telling instance.) Try Tea for Two if your idea of oriental mystery includes both smoke and golden light.

I love to smell this, I have no desire to wear it. That being said, I really enjoyed this fragrance anyway. I'm getting a strong scent association from this: People casually taking tea and nibbling on lightly-spiced gingered tea cakes (as said previously by someone else), perhaps reading a book with a cigarette dangling from their fingers. Tea, light spice, light cigarette smoke, very light ginger. That's what I'm getting. It certainly isn't unpleasant as it may sound. It has a certain comfort to it; it has it's own charm. It's not for me. But I can appreciate what they were trying to do here and I like the fact that L'Artisan can take you some place either exotic or comfortable and familiar as in this case. I respect the house for making fragrance more than just a scent and taking it to the level of storytelling.

Irresistible, definitely.

The opening is very medicinal on me. Very “fever-like”, if that makes any sense to anyone else….

As it dries down the medicinal character makes some room to something which smells to me very much like a ripe and fresh grounded tobacco mixed with sticky honey and a small dash of both; menthol and ginger.
In this fine condition it stays and lingers only to fade away after many many hours of time….
Due the time the sweetness takes a bit more over leaving that smoky, fresh tobacco smell with spices to be more in the background.
Still, a very stable fragrance. Dense and rich.

Tea for Two reminds me quite much of the older formulation of Eau du Fier by Annick Goutal. (As EdF was first discontinued and later on exclusively re-launched the juice had been changed into a more birch tarry, metallic smoky scent that wasn’t as full or sweet as the older one)

Phew! What a gourmand scent this is! If it were food, I would eat it but alas it is a fragrance and I think it is simply too overpowering and too gourmand-ish for a fragrance. It certainly is inappropriate in the hot and humid conditions of Singapore where I live.

I have to give props to its uniqueness though.

The milky tea opening is quite brief, and quickly dries down to slightly sweetened smokiness. It smells almost exactly like skin after standing next to a campfire. It's a love-it-or-hate-it thing. I happen to love it. This would be a great scent to wear in fall, with t-shirt and jeans and some nice boots. Quite chic in the right environment, I think.