The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Alkemia Perfumes launched Lunar New Year in 2018 as a seasonal release, and the 2019 edition arrived the following winter. Sharra Lamoureaux built the composition around the edible comforts of a Lunar New Year table, the kind of snack plate that sits between family conversations and a fresh pot of tea. The fragrance leans into a confectionery warmth, built on the same accord that defined the debut: mandarin brightness, candied ginger heat, steeped tea, and a buttery biscuit note. You can almost smell the cracker tray set down beside the teapot, the paper wrappers crinkling, the steam rising off a fresh cup.
What's distinctive here is the biscuit-and-tea pairing, a combination rarely treated as the main event. The composition builds from crisp cookies, candied ginger, mandarin, and steeped tea, letting the edible side carry the fragrance from first spritz to final fade. The result reads more like a kitchen memory than a polished seasonal release, and that grounding in everyday sweetness gives the scent its charm. There's nothing trying to dress it up. Just the warm hum of a treat, the kind you'd want nibbling on while the conversation drifts.
The evolution
The opening minutes are a burst of mandarin and candied ginger, bright and almost fizzy, the kind of start that makes you check your wrist twice. Then the tea leaf moves in, and the cookies settle underneath, giving the whole thing a baked-warmth that softens the spice. As the hours pass, the ginger mellows into something rounder and less sharp, while the tea becomes the dominant thread, leafy and slightly tannic, like the bottom of a second steeping. Eventually what lingers is a quiet trail of biscuit and dried mandarin peel, the kind of trace that stays close to the wearer. The sillage keeps it personal, a fragrance for the nose and whoever is close enough to lean in.
Cultural impact
Lunar New Year sits in Alkemia's seasonal catalog as a limited winter release, timed to the holiday it celebrates. It wears as a seasonal comfort scent, with a sweetness that fits the occasion it was built around, and that directness is part of why it resonates. The fragrance treats food memory as its central subject, leaning into ginger, mandarin, tea, and biscuit without ornamentation. Within Alkemia's broader catalog, it joins the brand's other gourmand-leaning compositions as a study in how a simple snack plate can become a wearable scent.
