The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
The fragrance borrows its name from genmaicha, a Japanese roasted-rice green tea. Monday, the first day of the work week, the calendar square where everything resets. Setchu built its fragrance around this idea of time as a coordinate, and Monday 9am owns the early morning slot. The official description frames it as a mindful Monday start, a way to ease into the week with something softer than caffeine. Not an energy boost. Not a pep talk. Just a gentler landing than most mornings offer. The roasted rice that gives genmaicha its character shows up in the bottle alongside Italian bergamot, green tea, maté, cardamom, vetiver, guaiac wood, and Havanawood, a deliberate cross-cultural brew that treats Japanese tea culture and European perfumery as ingredients rather than opposites.
The conceit pairs Japanese roasted rice and green tea with Italian bergamot EO and Bourbon vetiver. Julie Massé composed it; the ingredient list leans on Italian bergamot EO and Bourbon vetiver alongside the Japanese core. Maté and cardamom round out the middle, with guaiac wood and Havanawood sitting underneath to give it weight. It's a deliberate cross-cultural brew, Japanese tea culture meeting French perfumery in a single glass. The roasted rice is toasted, nutty, somewhere between popcorn and the bottom of a rice cooker.
The evolution
The opening belongs to bergamot, bright and a little prickly, more zest than juice. Green tea follows, soft and almost grassy, and somewhere underneath the roasted rice starts warming up. It's there early, toasted, nutty, a little like the bottom of the kettle just before the boil. Cardamom arrives quietly as the composition settles, bringing a dry, almost peppery heat that bridges the warm cup feeling with something woody. Bourbon vetiver and guaiac wood arrive in the drydown, anchoring the blend with their earthy, slightly smoky depth, and that roasted rice keeps returning to the surface no matter how many hours pass. Havanawood sits in the base too, adding its own faint dry warmth. The maté, present throughout, never announces itself, it just keeps the blend feeling brewed rather than composed.
Cultural impact
Monday 9am | Genmaicha arrives in 2025 as part of Setchu's fragrance collection, and it borrows directly from Japanese genmaicha, a toasted-rice green tea blend with deep roots in Japanese daily life. The fragrance threads that roasted-rice character through a structure built on Italian bergamot, Bourbon vetiver, cardamom, and maté, pulling ingredients from across continents without favoring one tradition over another. Setchu's identity rests on cultural synthesis, drawing from Japanese craft, tailoring, and food culture while operating within a European fashion framework.
