Tea Escape Maison Margiela 2014

As is common with tea scents, Tea Escape starts with bergamot and mint. This is very refreshing, juicy, very cheerful, and you can't go wrong with it.
Flowers underscore the whole thing with floral sweetness, specifically jasmine and osmanthus here.

This is very clever, and it certainly impresses my tea seller's heart. Because jasmine is a very traditional tea flower; it was actually the first flower used in China to naturally flavor green tea. The jasmine flowers are picked and dried, then mixed with the tea leaves and left to infuse their scent into the tea. Afterward, the jasmine flowers are sifted out. Fun fact: unlike jasmine tea intended for the European market, it is considered a flaw in China if any flowers are still visible in the tea. We Germans, however, like colorful splashes, so the flowers are often not sifted out. Osmanthus has also been used as a tea flavoring flower for a very long time - even though this variation is less known here. Using osmanthus is even doubly clever because its naturally apricot-like honey scent perfectly emphasizes the powdery peachiness that is characteristic of green tea.

That being said,
I unfortunately do not smell the green tea.
I have no doubt that it is there, but it is overshadowed by all the aroma.

The scent wants a lot; it simply cannot decide.
Is it a Chinese jasmine tea?
Is it a Gui Ha Sweet Osmanthus?
Is it a green Earl Grey?
Is it a Moroccan mint tea?
All I ultimately smell is a floral-fruity summer perfume, and the emphasis is on 'perfume'. Because tea is usually flavored EITHER with jasmine OR with osmanthus OR with bergamot OR with mint, but not with everything together. And milk does not really fit the scent profile of the zesty-fresh bergamot and only partially with the flowers.

The milk would have been great if the tea had been allowed to shine as a single note. Or if a more suitable aroma had been chosen, something more in the gourmand direction. For example, Green Tea Vanilla with milk or Green Tea Caramel with milk or Green Tea Walnut with milk.

It still smells delicious. The puffed rice brings an exciting, slightly roasted note. And once again, I must say, very clever! This reminds me of teas like Genmaicha Tokiwa, a green tea with roasted rice and roasted corn (essentially popcorn), which is popular in Japan. However, Genmaicha has a completely different flavor profile, grainy-roasted, as you can surely imagine. The milk would have paired well with that too.

All the individual notes make total sense for a tea scent! So someone has indeed sat down and thought a lot about it. But all the notes together come across as a scent that feels arbitrary, which is really a shame. It does smell good, but it could just as well be a fruity floral from Escada.