PIANYU 龍泉疏影 LONGQUAN SHU YING / Celadon & Plum Shadow

The name Longquan is inspired by the famed Longquan celadon of the Southern Song Dynasty. Longquan celadon is celebrated for its warm, understated pale green hue—a color that emerges only after enduring temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees, revealing a shade resting gently between blue and green, like mountain mist reflected on clear water.

As ancient scholars described it: "Green as jade, bright as a mirror, thin as paper, and resonant as a chime."

The crystal-clear, deep green shade of this fragrance immediately recalls the calm, introspective luster of Longquan celadon. No words capture its essence more perfectly, which is why it bears the name Longquan.

Shuying (Sparse Shadows) draws from the famous lines of the Song Dynasty hermit poet Lin Bu in Little Plum Blossom of the Mountain Garden:

"Sparse shadows lean slantwise across shallow, clear waters;

A faint fragrance floats in the moonlit dusk."

The poem praises not an overwhelming sweetness, but the subtle, elusive presence of the plum blossom, alongside the tranquil image of night boughs reflected upon water. This serene landscape is precisely what this fragrance seeks to capture.

Its inspiration stems from an ancient incensed blend recorded in a Song Dynasty fragrance manuscript.

The Tang and Song dynasties marked the golden age of Chinese aromatic culture. In those times, truly rare ingredients like agarwood, ambergris, and musk were not accessible to all. Thus, scholars began blending diverse natural aromatics to "create" scents from imagination—a craft known as Hexiang (blended incense). Among these creations, the scent of the plum blossom was favored above all.

Intriguingly, artisans did not place actual plum blossoms into the formulas. Instead, they layered natural botanicals step by step to reconstruct their idealized impression of the flower.

I have refined the proportions of this historical formula so it can be enjoyed as burned incense, applied as body balm, and ultimately converted into a natural fine fragrance—allowing the quiet aroma from a scholar’s desk a thousand years ago to be reborn in a modern form.

Burning incense, hanging paintings, arranging flowers, and whisking tea comprised the "Four Elegant Pastimes" of the Song Dynasty. Longquan Shuying paints a late-night scene within a scholar’s study: a gentle plume of smoke rising softly from a celadon burner, plum branches silhouetted against the moonlight outside the window, their shadows cast onto the writing desk as time itself slows down within the scent.

Olfactory Pyramid
Top Notes | Borneol & Clear Spring Water

An initial veil of clear, cool borneol—far less assertive than mint, evoking instead the crisp purity of dark night spring water. Clean and transparent with a gentle, uplifting quality, like moonlight falling over celadon.

Heart Notes | Ancient Hexiang Accord & Plum Shadows

As the fragrance unfolds, herbal and woody nuances intertwine. Free of conventional floral sweetness, it presents the Song scholars' poetic impression of plum blossom: subtle, elusive, like the faint shadow and fleeting trail of night branches cast upon the water.

Base Notes | Earth, Woods & Tranquility

The scent lingers into a grounded, serene atmosphere of rich earth. Damp soil, warm woods, and natural aromatics weave together, echoing the peaceful residual warmth left in a room after incense has burned away—steady, profound, and deeply calming.

Top Notes | Borneol · Clear Spring Water

Heart Notes | Ancient Hexiang Accord · Plum Shadows

Base Notes | Earth · Woods · Tranquility

10ML