By Kilian Imperial Tea was originally launched in 2014 as part of the Asian Tales Collection, and was discontinued and is now back in 2024. This is the blue bottle from 2024. Created by Calice Becker, it is inspired by Jasmine Tea. Notes of bergamot, Laminaria seaweed, green tea, Jasmine sambac, vetiver and musk.
From the brand -
"For our founder, travel always comes with surprises, new encounters, and love. This time, the sea breeze carried him to a new land where rich tea culture has endured for centuries. He witnessed the crafting of Jasmine Tea, with hand-picked white flowers layered on fermenting tea to infuse their oils. He watched the serving of Jasmine Tea with floating blooms and tasted it in a moment of timelessness and elegance, one he wished would never end. One sip, and all senses expand in Jasmine blooms outside of space and time.
"The perfume: Imperial Tea is a pure, linear fragrance around a Green Tea accord infused with Jasmine Sambac absolute. An opening uplift of Bergamot and Laminaria Seaweed—a rare ingredient in perfumery offering mineral and airy equilibrium—captures the mist of ocean air, while the fragrance lasts long with rooted notes of Vetiver oil and Musk. Pulled toward the sky and back to the earth, at its core is the Jasmine Tea of a regal Chinese cultural ritual enduring across millennia."
Kilian Hennessy launched By Kilian in 2007. Yup, the Cognac Hennessy, grandson to the founder of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Group, he followed his interest in scent, writing his thesis on the semantics of odors. After spending time with leading perfumers, he launched By Kilian with the Collection L'oeuvre Noire (Black Masterpiece) series. There are now 10 fragrances in that series. The over-the-top marketing copy drew a lot of criticism in the early part of his launch, but the gorgeous packaging - black lacquer boxes and black bottles - started to win us over, as did the artistry of the fragrances.
The Black Narcissus - "Instead, spraying this perfume on the back of my hand I am assailed by an intense and beautiful green jasmine, rasping on a bed of fresh Chinese (oolong?) tea leaves; impertinent in its reach, hypnotically sexual, the kind of perfume that is guaranteed to turn heads as its wearer moves knowingly through the room in an open-at-the-neck white dress. I don’t have the official notes of Imperial Tea to hand, but to my nose, it is essentially an inspired infusion of jasmine with tea, or tea with jasmine: a marriage. The jasmine used in abundance in Chinese temples and perfume oils: indolic, pungent, erotic, almost harsh and disturbing, but here paired beautifully with an equally no-nonsense fresh tea leaf accord, well tempered, the tea calming down those fierce jasmine blooms, the jasmine bolstering the tea: similar, vaguely, to Jean Claude Ellena’s Osmanthe Yunnan in construction but with three times the heft and eros."
Fragrantica - "It is a profoundly soft fragrance, and not in a thin or absent way. The minimalist duo of tea and jasmine blend in a way that is petal soft yet rich and bold, but not cloying or heavy, not thin or sheer, just a perfect soft touch. Picture a constant tender caress: never overbearing but never absent either, just a permanent soft presence. That's the vibe I get from Imperial Tea."
