OLFACTORY RESTORATION

INDIGO SMOKE

Black Tea Smoking

Regular price
$205.00
Sale price
$205.00
ARQUISTE INDIGO SMOKE
Indigo Smoke by ARQUISTE
Antique Chinese Landscape
Tea Country in the Wuyi Mountains 1790
Tea Cultivation in the Wuyi Mountains 1790
Indigo Smoke by ARQUISTE
Indigo Smoke white background
ARQUISTE INDIGO SMOKE FRAGRANCE
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INDIGO SMOKE

Black Tea Smoking

Regular price
$205.00
Sale price
$205.00

Evoking the traditional smoking of tea leaves in ancient China, Indigo Smoke is an aromatic landscape of narrow serpentine rivers, blue mountains and incense-filled temples condensed into a complex formula of black tea, woody notes and incense. Rich, realistic and long-lasting. With notes of lapsang souchong tea, mandarin orange, apricot, guaiac wood, incense and pine tar.

100 ml / 3.4 fl oz. Eau de Parfum

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ARQUISTE ships exclusively within the continental United States.

East Coast customers: 3 business days after processing.
Central and West coast customers: 5-7 business days after order processing.


History

May 1646, Wuyi Mountains, Fujian.

For centuries, diligent monks in the Wuyi Mountains have grown tea and indigo plants in neatly terraced plantations. In 1646, their monasteries were attacked by Qing soldiers from the north. As the monks were forced to flee, they smoked batches of tea leaves over pinewood fire to preserve their crops. This would become the smoky lapsang souchong tea. Mixing with the fresh mountain air and the incense from nearby shrines, the intoxicating plumes of indigo smoke captured the colors of the Wuyi Mountains and their dramatic river narrows. 

Developed with Calice Becker.

Description


Olfactive pyramid

Top Notes

Bergamot

Bigarade orange oil

Lapsang souchong accord

Vetiver

Heart Notes

Apricot accord

Cassia oil

Carrot seed oil

Gaiac wood

Vanilla absolute

Base Notes

Maté tea absolute

Cedar leaf oil

Pine tar

Incense

 

Intro

History

Bio

Image


Description

Created with master perfume Calice Becker, Indigo Smoke is a fragrance for every gender, inspired by the aromatic history of lapsang souchong tea. Like the mountain terraces from which it originated, it encapsulates an aromatic landscape of indigo blues, purples and greens.

Eau de Parfum. Large 100 ml / 3.4 fl oz. bottle of the highest Italian quality with our signature ‘A’ engraved metal cap, as well as the newest technology for an invisible spray tube.



More

More research

- Lapsang souchong was first created in 1646, as civilians in the Wuyi Mountain areas fled from Qing soldiers who were advancing through the area on their Manchu unification campaign against the Southern Ming. Before they fled, to avoid spoilage of newly plucked leaves, batches were quickly dried over fire and buried in sacks. Afterwards, despite the odor, the tea leaves were shipped and sold to the Dutch traders. At the time, the months-long journey from China to Europe necessitated preservation methods and the partial oxidation of this Wuyi tea was better able to preserve its quality. The smoky souchong tea sold and the Dutch returned to request more. Lapsang Souchong was perhaps the first black tea ever produced and traded.The trade name would later become lapsang souchong from the Fuzhou dialect: La (pine) Sang (wood) with souchong meaning "small sort" referring to the leaves used.

- In the 16th century, farmers in Wuyi began growing tea and indigo side by side on the mountainside, on estates owned by Buddhist or Taoist monasteries. The farmers cut terraces into the slopes, and built a system of dikes and drains. During the Ming dynasty, monks also developed a new technique for stopping the oxidation process of tea, pan-firing the leaves in a dry wok rather than steaming them as had been done previously. This produced a darker, more fragrant type of tea.

Lapsang souchong is manufactured similar to black tea but with an intermediary step of smoking. Traditionally pine wood is used for this, and the leaves are processed within a  smoke house. The indoor withering is done with the leaves laid out on bamboo mats and turned and rolling at intervals. Many of the compounds making up its wood-smoked aroma, originate in the pine smoke and are not found in other kinds of tea.

The Wuyi Mountains are the largest and most representative example of Chinese subtropical forests, including warm coniferous, evergreen and bamboo forests. The landscape is characterized by beautiful winding river valleys flanked by dramatic columnar or dome-shaped cliffs.

Bibliography

  • Rose, Sarah,For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History, Penguin Books, 2011.
  • Britannica Educational Publishing,  The Geography of China: Sacred and Historic Places, Kenneth Pletcher, editor.  Britannica Educational Publishing, 2010.
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Mount Wuyi, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 9 Apr 2021.
  •  Hargett, James M., Jade Mountains and Cinnabar Pools: The History of Travel Literature in Imperial China, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2018.
  • Wang, Yin-Zheng, Chapman, Geoffrey P. The Plant Life of China: Diversity and Distribution, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, New York, 2002.
  • Heiss, M. L.; Heiss, R. J., The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide The World Tea Encyclopaedia,  Troubador Publishing, 2017.
  • Yong Liu, The Dutch East India Company's Tea Trade with China, 1757-1781, Brill Publishers, 2007.
  • Yao, S. S.; Guo, W. F.; Lu, Y.; Jiang, Y. X, Flavor Characteristics of Lapsang Souchong and Smoked Lapsang Souchong, a Special Chinese Black Tea with Pine Smoking ProcessJournal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2005.
  • Martin, Laura C.,. A History of Tea: The Life and Times of the World's Favorite Beverage, Tuttle Publishing, 2018
  • Benn, James A., Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History, Hong Kong University Press, 2015
  • Berg, Maxine, ed., Goods from the East, 1600-1800: Trading Eurasia, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
  • Hohenegger, Beatrice, Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West, St. Martin's Press, 2014.
  • Mair, Victor H.; Hoh, Erling, The True History of Tea, Thames & Hudson, 2009. 

ARQUISTE Indigo Smoke Fragrance