Tea Storm, Ink Mark or Moon Tale: Which Louis Vuitton to Try First

For most of a year, you had to be in China to smell these. Louis Vuitton released three perfumes there in October 2025 under the name Journey to China, and the first reviews on Fragrantica came from shoppers in Shanghai and Qingdao. One of the three was called Rain Tea. By the time the trio reached Louis Vuitton's stores and website elsewhere in September 2026, Rain Tea had become Tea Storm.

If you can try only one first, choose by the weather and your mood. Tea Storm is the fresh one: lemongrass, rose and a honeyed tea, made for warm days. Ink Mark is the woody one, a creamy sandalwood with white incense that reviewers compare with Le Labo's Santal 33. Moon Tale is the floral one, raspberry and peony over a powdery musk. Each costs $360 for 100 ml at Louis Vuitton.

How the trio came about

Jacques Cavallier Belletrud was born in Grasse in 1962 into a family of perfumers; his father and grandfather both worked in the trade. He joined Louis Vuitton in 2012 to create the house's first perfumes and has composed its fragrances since. His daughter, Camille Cavallier Belletrud, is a perfumer too, and she first worked alongside him on LVERS, the 2024 fragrance made with Pharrell Williams. Louis Vuitton's product pages credit Journey to China to Jacques alone, as its Master Perfumer. The launch coverage, in Whitewall and Jing Daily among others, says father and daughter composed the three together.

The trio is the newest chapter of Perfumes of the World, the series in which Louis Vuitton travels through scent. Earlier chapters went to the Middle East and to California. Cavallier Belletrud told Whitewall that China has its own tradition of beauty, with scent present everywhere from cooking to herbal tea, and that he wanted to capture it without clichés. The bottle is the house's familiar Marc Newson flacon, reworked after the Chinese snuff bottle, small vessels that grew from practical objects into collected art. Each comes in opalescent glass with a lacquered cap in its own colors.

They were made with Chinese wearers in mind, and that shapes how they wear. Writing from Shanghai for Fragrantica in April 2026, Andrei Lensky passed on a point a dsm-firmenich representative made to him: in Chinese culture, smelling strongly of perfume is considered bad manners. Reports on performance vary, but many reviewers find Tea Storm and Ink Mark soft and close to the skin. That suits an office. If you like to leave a trail across a room, try them on skin before you choose.

Tea Storm: the fresh one, formerly Rain Tea

Louis Vuitton tells Tea Storm's story as a tea ceremony held outdoors, in a landscape stirred by water and wind. "In China, tea is much more than a beverage," Cavallier Belletrud told Whitewall. In China the perfume was sold as Rain Tea. For the wider release it became Tea Storm, and Fragrantica reports that only the name changed, not the formula. Some decanters and stores still list it under the old name.

It opens on lemongrass, bright and a little sharp. Magnolia follows, a flower the perfumer describes as one of the freshest, with an almost citrus brightness. Then comes a Grasse rose extracted with CO2, a material Louis Vuitton produces for its own use. Underneath sits a tea accord the house describes as woody, with hints of hay and honey. Fragrantica reviewers liken the result to honeyed lemon green tea or a glass of iced tea. A few find the lemongrass loud for the first half hour, before the rose and tea come through.

Fragrantica voters place it in spring and summer, and it is the best rated of the three there, at 4.55 out of 5 from 208 votes when we checked on October 1, 2026. Choose it for hot days, for the office, or if you already wear Imagination, Louis Vuitton's black tea fragrance, which the house calls its most sought-after cologne. Imagination is warmer and more ambery, with citrus and black tea from China; reviewers find Tea Storm greener and more floral, and better suited to warm weather than to year-round wear. Next to its siblings it is the lightest, with none of Ink Mark's wood and less of Moon Tale's sweetness. Louis Vuitton sells the 100 ml bottle at $360.

Ink Mark: the woody one

Ink Mark began on the pavements of Shanghai. Louis Vuitton says Cavallier Belletrud was struck there by water calligraphy, poems brushed onto the ground in water that dry and vanish within minutes, a street art in a city that moves fast around its old traditions. Chinese ink is made from wood slowly burned down to soot, and the house took that as the cue for a woody perfume. White incense, distilled in Grasse, adds a cool, mineral contrast, and amber carries the trail.

On skin it is creamy sandalwood first and last. The ingredient list on Louis Vuitton's page names sandalwood oil among the materials. Rose and magnolia stay in the background. Reviewers describe a dry, papery wood rather than wet black ink, and some catch a faint smokiness from the incense. Andrei Lensky, summing up the trio for Fragrantica, called this one a salty sandalwood.

The comparison you will see most often is Le Labo's Santal 33. Some reviewers find the two close in the first minutes; others say Ink Mark stays warmer and creamier, while Santal 33 dries down to leather. A few liken it to LVERS, the house's 2024 sandalwood and cedar fragrance. Fragrantica voters spread Ink Mark across the year, with a lean toward fall and winter. Choose it if sandalwood is your note, if you like quiet incense, or if you want a fragrance that keeps close and calm. It is the most neutral of the three, and the easiest to share. Louis Vuitton sells the 100 ml bottle at $360.

Moon Tale: the floral one

Moon Tale takes its story from the Four Beauties of Chinese legend, one of whom is said to have outshone the moon. Louis Vuitton built it around beauty rituals: a flash of red, a veil of rice powder, the last gesture before stepping out at night. The bottle's colors come from tian-tsui, the old Chinese craft of decorating jewelry with blue kingfisher feathers, set off here with coral.

The red becomes raspberry in the opening. Then comes peony with a green edge of geranium, and jasmine sambac cooled by magnolia, over musks the house describes as a powdery, cosmetic veil. Reviewers reach for clean comparisons: good hotel shampoo, a soft bar of soap, face powder. When Fragrantica's Andrei Lensky and Igor Masyukov smelled a berry rose with an expensive-shampoo feel at the Notes Shanghai fair in April 2026, Moon Tale was the fragrance it brought to mind, which they described as made for the Chinese market.

Opinions on Moon Tale split, and for several Fragrantica reviewers it is the best of the three. Some find it plainly feminine; others wear it as an easy unisex scent for work. Reports on its strength vary more than for the other two, from soft to room-filling, so it is worth wearing for a full day before you decide. If you know Louis Vuitton's Attrape-Rêves, the house's favorite among women by its own account, Fragrantica's voters pair the two; one reviewer finds Moon Tale similar in sweetness, without Attrape-Rêves' cocoa. Louis Vuitton sells the 100 ml bottle at $360.

Where the bottles are sold

In the US, Louis Vuitton sells all three only on louisvuitton.com and in selected Louis Vuitton stores, at $360 for 100 ml, with complimentary engraving of initials. The bottles are refillable in stores that have a perfume fountain. The house also sells a Miniature Perfume Set with 10 ml of each fragrance for $360, and its site suggests adding a sample to your order, so that you can try the fragrance and return the bottle unopened if it is not for you. Decants are another way to wear one for a week before you choose.

If you can try only one

Pick Tea Storm if you want something fresh for warm days, or if you already love Imagination and want its greener, more floral relative. Pick Ink Mark if sandalwood is your note, if you like Santal 33 but want it softer and without the leather, or if you need something quiet for the office. Pick Moon Tale if you like clean florals with a powdery finish and a little sweetness.

If you are torn between two, wear both on the same day, one on each wrist. These are soft fragrances, and skin tells you more than notes do.