Thé Glacé Aqua Parfum Terry de Gunzburg: Provencal Iced Tea à la Russe

by: Serguey Borisov

In deference to the hedonistic culture and viral good mood of the Russian people (should be added – the nouveau-riche Russian people, who spent half the year at the French Riviera with a great appetite for life), Terry de Gunsburg created her new fragrance Thé Glacé Aqua Parfum Terry de Gunzburg Russian Gold Edition. It's a provencal iced tea exclusively for the Russian perfume market.

Thé Glacé Aqua Parfum Russian Gold Edition is a fragrance like a special cold drink, based upon tea leaves, but with plenty of other aromatic components. There are flowers and fruits, there are fragrant twigs and leaves, there is even dry moss and some coumarin! And despite the fact that the fragrance symbolizes the French Riviera, not all plants were born under the generous Provence sun. The title is very long and needs to be divided into parts to understand it properly. Let's start from the end of the name.

Russian Gold Edition is just a reference to the exclusive target audience of the perfume. Russian gold alludes to the Russians' love for luxury. The iconic Terry de Gunzburg stopper, resembling a mercury drop, became gilded for this edition, recalling the gilded shining domes of the Kremlin, the Christ the Savior Cathedral and other orthodox Russian churches. Russian gold is also conveyed with the gilded decoration of the packaging and the bottle label. Abstract graphic designs made of gold, black and acid green lines, placed on a white background, have the look of a summer ornament on the mini dresses of Russian girls. Russian gold is the vast Russian market for the French perfume and cosmetics industry. Russian gold also could symbolize the Russian group of “golden boys and girls”, who are to be found in almost every country. Thé Glacé Russian Gold Edition was aimed at young people – there is no vintage warm amber or smoked tea, no Russian leather military belts, and no orthodox incense. It is an iced citrus green tea perfume, a fresh green modern fougere, which is a relatively modern and beloved perfume type. The Gold Edition fragrance is designed to be easily understood and beloved – because the language of gold is well understood in all corners of the planet.

Then, the next part: Aqua Parfum. It's an unusual designation for a perfume concentration but could be understood in the sense that the Thé Glacé tonifies and refreshes like an eau de cologne, even though its concentration (25% of perfume juice) and tenacity corresponds to an Eau de Parfum. There`s some logic in this – as there`s no tea without water. It's the only explanation I can come up with.

The recipe for Thé Glacé by Terry de Gunzburg looks like this: once dry black tea is infused in a hot water, it is necessary to cool it down and add some verbena leaves, shoots of lavender, peels of lemon and grapefruit to the infusion. If you are in geotag-dropping mood, you can specify that the grapefruits were grown in Sicily, the lemons came from Calabria, the lavender was grown in Provencal Luberon and the special black tea with vanilla flavor was brought from a southern Mauritius town called Bois Chéri.

So this is not an ordinary black Keemun, but one of those salubrious French tisanes, a herbal infusion of some specially blended aromatic plants. Fragrant verbena tisane is as common in France as home-made tea blends with mint, lemon balm, chamomile and blackcurrant leaves are in Russia. The verbena plant was considered sacred in the past, with healing properties (it was believed that rubbing your body with verbena would make your wish come true), and now in the Provence it has the status of a fragrant weed. However, Verbena tisane is still considered a drink of love, as it calms anger.

The herbal cocktail on ice should be decorated with a pair of transparent jasmine flowers, then add a dry and slightly sweet coumarin (like – zubrovka or good old Provencal absinthe for the guys, or maybe cake with grated tonka bean for the young ladies) that will remain intact until the end of the tasting. And be sure to set the table with a crisp white linen cloth before serving a drink on it, together with a silver bucket with ice. The result will be not a drink but a nectar, fragrant and refreshing, green and floral, a transparent and musky fresh fougere.

Thé Glacé Aqua Parfum Terry de Gunzburg Russian Gold Edition

Notes: Verbena, Grapefruit, Almond, White flower accord, Lavender, Tea, Mate, Camphor, Moss, Musk.