Tambae

Midnight in a Korean art school, where the last lamp is still burning.

Smoked ginseng tea drifts through the air like something just extinguished — warm, a little bitter, faintly medicinal. It settles around the dry rustle of paper and the deep, resinous pull of oud, grounding the whole thing in the texture of creative work: worn wooden surfaces, ink-stained hands, the particular stillness of a room where someone has been making something for hours. Tobacco and amber come through slowly, honeyed and close, softening the smoke into something almost tender.

It's the feeling of late-night focus — not restless, but alive. The kind of atmosphere that makes ideas feel possible.

Notes: Smoked Ginseng Tea, Paper, Oud, Amber, Tobacco

KST Scent is a Korean-American fragrance house based in the United States, crafting perfumes that weave Korean culture, queer identity, and personal memories into scent-driven stories.

As part of LV1 Studio, its fragrances reinterpret Vietnamese and Korean heritage through a queer, contemporary lens, translating New Year traditions, modern Korean queer culture, and nightlife into olfactive experiences.

The brand is LGBT-owned, created by Vietnamese American perfumer James Nguyen and his partner, Korean creative director Kael Jeong, whose shared backgrounds ground KST Scent’s lineup in emotionally vivid, culturally rooted perfumes rather than conventional luxury tropes.