Monsoon Tea

Sampling Monsoon Tea by d’Annam, a really pleasantly watery fresh blend of citruses, green tea, musk, and vetiver, very much in the same family as In The Garden, but a shift away from florals and neroli in favor of citruses and green tea, but still citric, green, fresh, and agreeable. It has a vaguely mossy, borderline vegetal quality to it but not so much that it smells realistic to the point of being unpleasant. It’s really quite great, as with the other scents I’ve tried in the house so far, and performs well, particularly for a freshie. As with the rest of the line, Monsoon Tea is EDP concentration and priced at $120 for 50ml, which is a very reasonable pricing level relative to other niche options currently. In addition to the full collection being sold on their house site, d’Annam is now carried, in part, by Ministry of Scent, Luckyscent, and Arielle Shoshana, each of which sells some, but not all, of the line’s current catalogue of nine fragrances. Monsoon Tea is sold by all three of those boutiques, though. 8 out of 10

Oh that's the stuff! The smell of when your mom made you green tea as a kid, but you didn't like it because it was well... unsweetened green tea, so you procrastinated drinking it, but it cooled down and that only made the taste stronger, now fully saturated and tasting sharp like the stems more than the leaves. The citrus is a wonderful contribution, and makes this a fresh scent. There's something almost aquatic about it, giving it that wet feel, and creating a scent that is both fresh and sharp, yet weirdly calming, the same way that rain makes you want to stay inside and relax, yet makes you feel energized and awake. I've worn it both to start the day, and to bed. The originality - making a fresh clean scent smell interesting - alone makes the price tag justified. Nothing like anything I've tried before, and my favourite from the vietnam discovery set so far.

I have been searching for a super fresh green tea scent, and i definitely think this accomplishes it. Within the first few mins it is everything I wanted, green tea, grassy, zingy and citrus, like a fresher stronger version of Elizabeth Arden’s green tea. It kind of calms down into more of the grass and warms up a bit after a while, but like a lot of green tea fragrances it isn’t super strong and doesn’t last a long time. I think it does last better and stronger than a lot of other green tea scents I’ve tried, it doesn’t completely disappear like some other do, and I think it’s a really good option for times when I don’t necessarily want a really strong or offensive scent. Like this would be great to wear to work, to travel, to class etc. I do just generally really enjoy it though, it’s a fragrance that just makes me happy!

Love this perfume, honestly. When I tried it on paper, the opening was a bit too harsh for me, but then dried down beautifully, still the opening made me a bit disappointed. BUT, I tried it on skin a couple of hours ago and the opening was not harsh on me, it was pleasant, and dried to the same beautiful center of green tea, which I love. I also chose a great day since it’s a warm and rainy spring day. It’s been 2 hours and I can still smell in on myself but I don’t expect it to last much longer, nonetheless, I don’t really mind since I love it so much that I can just reapply. I have a tester from the discovery kit, but I will try to purchase a full bottle asap. Both this, and pomelo oolong are my favourite tea scents and some of my favourite scents overall.

My first impression: instantly fell in love. Next thought was that it smelled like a far more complex and expensive version of the method blue hand soap (called sea minerals) at which point i realized i may be too much of a plebeian to pick out any notes from this. It does not smell like green tea to me, nor citrus .. maybe it smells a bit like green tea? A jasmine note? To me it all blends together into one beautiful scent but doesnt smell particularly unique or unfamiliar... EDIT I have applied a larger dose of this and now I really get the green tea and bergamot. Heavenly.. if only it lasted longer on the skin