Q. What Fragrance Materials Are Used in Black Tea Perfumes?

A. What is black tea in the first place? Let us start there.
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What Is Black Tea?

In Japan, a misunderstanding gives the word kōcha two meanings.
① Tea made by fermenting tea leaves, with Darjeeling and Assam as representative examples. Also known as black tea.
② Tea made by adding flavoring to a blend of black teas, such as Earl Grey or apple tea. This is called flavor tea, or flavored tea.

To learn about the scents of other teas, see Tea (Fragrance Materials Dictionary) (in Japanese). For an easy-to-understand explanation of tea classifications in general, see this page.

① Black tea is generally drunk as it is, so the character of the leaves comes through in the aroma, allowing you to enjoy the scents of different growing regions.
② Flavored tea, on the other hand, is made to broaden the world of aroma by scenting blends of several black teas with artificial essential oils or flavorings, beginning with bergamot.

The History of Tea Perfumes

Let us take a small detour and talk about how the first tea perfume in history came into being. The story goes back to 1988.

In France, there was a couple who loved Mariage Frères tea: Jean-Claude Ellena (in Japanese) and his wife, Susanna. Ellena found the aroma inside the Mariage Frères shop, which the perfumer visited repeatedly, wonderful. On returning to the laboratory, Ellena would write down the scents encountered there, and arrived at an idea: to take the material used only to create the smell of violets for a century or more, β-ionone, and combine it with jasmine (in Japanese) constituent Hedione (in Japanese) to create the scent of tea.

The world’s first abstract tea note (in Japanese) created without using tea thus appeared on the market in 1991 as a perfume called Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (“green tea perfume”), Bvlgari’s first-ever fragrance.

The people from Bvlgari’s marketing department came over and asked, “We really like this tea note, but which tea did you use in the perfume?” And I said, “There is no tea in it. It is just an illusion.” But they did not believe me.

Jean-Claude Ellena

As soon as Ellena’s tea became a success, tea fragrances began a steady boom that continues to this day, with many scents on the market.

Incidentally, two reasons behind the creation of tea notes are ① tea leaves themselves do not contain enough scent to extract a sufficient quantity of fragrance material, and ② the aroma rising from brewed tea is more complex than that of the essence.
Essences are extracted from green tea, black tea, maté, and rooibos for use in perfume. However, because they smell different from what we imagine, it seems that these teas are generally represented by combining the extracts with other scents.

Answer: The Materials Used in Different Tea Perfumes

Since we are on the subject, I would like to answer not only for black tea but for a variety of tea perfumes, explaining the scents mainly used and introducing representative perfumes as well.

First, a commonly used tea accord (in Japanese) is a slight modification of Ellena’s combination above. (This is because jasmine contains Hedione, and violet contains ionone.) However, each perfumer has their own tea note or tea accord, so the same name does not necessarily mean the same thing. Maté absolute is also often used for an abstract tea scent.

Why are violet notes, or the similarly scented ionones, used in tea fragrances? Victoria, who runs the well-known Bois de Jasmin, says that finding a violet-like nuance in the aroma of sencha made it all make sense.

For background on the differences between teas, see this article (in Japanese).

White Tea

Green Tea

Green tea is often represented using a small amount of maté absolute or Hedione (in Japanese).
Maté is a tea widely drunk in South America. Green maté in particular has a taste and aroma similar to green tea, while roasted maté, made by roasting the leaves, has a flavor like hōjicha.
Hedione is mainly used to give a transparent, fresh, and light impression.

Oolong Tea

Because oolong tea is semi-fermented, its aroma falls somewhere between green and black tea. For this reason, woody scents are often combined with slightly fruity and floral scents.

Black Tea (Kōcha)

These perfumes are generally created by combining woody, earthy, and slightly smoky scents. Because black tea is made by fully fermenting tea leaves, these scents are used to express its distinctive aroma.

Flavored Tea (Black Tea Blend + Flavoring)

Rooibos Tea

Whereas green and black tea are made from the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, in the Theaceae family, rooibos tea is made from an African plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is also known as red tea.

Masala Chai

Recommendations from Perfume Lovers Who Love Tea Fragrances

Tea-fragrance lovers have shared their recommended tea perfumes! There are many different kinds of tea, so if you are looking for one, please take a look. If there is a perfume you would love to recommend to someone trying to find a tea scent, you are always welcome to reply to this tweet.

[Calling for Contributions]
Would you like to share a perfume recommendation?
What is your favorite tea perfume?
All perfume lovers are welcome to reply, regardless of experience, or whether you are a manufacturer or an individual! 👼
If you are looking for a tea perfume, I hope you find this helpful! 🥰

・Perfume name and brand name
・Write whatever you like: who you recommend it to, what it smells like, and so on
・Include any images you like and write as much or as little as you wish!

— Fragrance Learning Space ★ Le Chercheur de Parfum (@per_fume_as) November 16, 2022