Description
The next in the Retrograde Files : The Silk Road
I have always loved tea; TEA(!)… of any kind has been my constant companion since I started sipping from little cups with my Mom and Grandmother from around the age of 3.
In high school, I started becoming more adventurous and began discovering more unusual tea blends and strains. One of my favorites from that time (and it still is) was ‘Russian Caravan” — that smoky, almost leathery, black tea blend that gets it distinctive flavor (and scent) from Lapsang Souchong (a type of fermented and smoked black tea from China), Oolong, and Assam, among others. For me it brought many reveries…imagining far away places and *the Silk Road* travelers who drank many a cup on their journeys bringing silks, spices, teas, and other luxury good from the Far East to Europe. These fantasies became a fragrance from one of my earliest collections, with the launch of “The Silk Road” (the first version), in 1998. Now it’s back with some incredible revisions… it’s all I ever dreamed it could be. For me, it’s the perfect smoky “cuppa”.
*Retrograde Files note: Here’s what makes this more than just a relaunch: it’s another re-imagining of an earlier fragrance concept as seen through the lens of wonderful new natural materials that weren’t available when I first created The Silk Road in 1998.
Yury Summers (verified owner) –
So interesting – most people are used to the fact that cold weather scents are warm and dense, but this one if different, and yet I find it to be a more perfect match for cold weather than stereotypical warm scents.
For the first time, I wore it on a crispy October morning and was totally wowed by its character and composition.
It might be the combination of tea’s bitter tannicness with the sweetness of resin that does this trick. To me, this combination turns into some special “autumnal fruitiness” quality.
Chilled overripen fruits.
Bitter, slightly sour, smoky tea tannicness.
Sure I’ll be reaching out for this one a lot in the coming fall months.
rene c. (verified owner) –
*Gorgeous* deep smokey black tea fragrance with just enough sweetness to lift it up in a way that elaborates upon rather than eclipses its rich depth. The dark rose flickers in beautifully to support the piece without making it a rose forward fragrance. Imagine drinking a hot, very strong and sweet black tea perhaps with incense smoke wafting in from the street and the smell of deep red rose oil in the background enriching it all. I have the oil essence and find it to be so aromatically therapeutic, particularly at bedtime. I don’t own anything else like Silk Road~ highly unique and I can’t recommend it enough -<@
i (verified owner) –
ooh, smoky and almost savory on the first application…(smells wrist) There was a lapsang souchong here…It’s a very deep and full bodied smell if that makes sense, a light suggestion of spices but the main focus here is on the tea. There seems to be a slight woody base to it, primarily cedar. However, I mostly just get smoky tea with a hint of incense. Quite cozy and comforting.
juniperlatte (verified owner) –
Wonderful smokey black tea (predominantly lapsang souchong and assam) surrounded by incense and resins. The cedarwood and rose provide a gorgeous backing without overpowering the tea.
delicatearts (verified owner) –
At first a very strongly smoky black tea scent, so bitter and tannic that on my skin it smells quite a lot like leather instead of tea! But rising above it are the stunningly delicate green tea and oolong, light, floral-tinged, and floating. The layered effect is very interesting. The rose is very fresh and sparkling, at least it seems to me, and quite subtle. I personally prefer the lighter aspects of this scent to the bitter ones, but the artistry on display is undeniable.
carter –
After I’ve been wearing it for an hour or so it smells like the inside of an old tea chest. Rich, dark, smoky (of course) and also a little waxy? For me that’s a good thing. The rose isn’t very noticeable but definitely there. Somehow this reminds me of a scent I LOVE but haven’t been able to obtain more than a sample size of— anna zworykina’s venetian red