Interview Apollo Tea | Heritage
DONIA LAKHDAR MAKTOUM
Tea moment at Saint-Louis, travels and cultural encounters
Donia Lakhdar Maktoum, head of the Saint-Louis heritage department (historical collection and museum).
"My core mission is to facilitate dialogue between history and contemporary creation, through the conservation, study, enrichment and sharing of the collection's heritage. The collection is composed of 7,000 objects and over 650,000 archives, each representing, bearing witness to and providing a source of continuity and innovation for the Maison. I also support designers in their immersion, impregnation and inspiration within the secret lair of Saint-Louis' living memory, where wonder takes place and where everyone is challenged to create novelties inspired by more than 430 years of art de vivre."
The secrets of Saint-Louis' crystal pieces trace back to the 16th century. Among them, the openness of its art of living to all moments of life, to other cultures, while considering the intended use and desired experience. Colors, aromas, beverage temperature and taster experience: each object has been developed with the help of creators, designers and tasting experts for over 430 years.
Tea objects have been featured in catalogs of the House since the first half of the 19th century. Associated with other places and conviviality, these objects were baptized "Invitation au voyage et au partage" (Invitation to travel and share): from the Marhaba collection in Fez in the 50s to Rabat in the 90s. Apollo Tea upholds this tradition and the quest for the simplicity of an ideal tasting experience, while bringing a resolutely new approach.
The tea, affiliated for 110 years with the Thistle collection (1913), itself born of Chardon (1909) and now the new Apollo Tea range (2023), fulfills the natural vocation of its predecessors to serve plant-based beverages. It links the crystalline floral form of the gobs of glass with the fragile beverage of dried leaves to which it is dedicated.
The proportion of tea and water, the temperature and infusion time required for the tea to express itself, and the need for a nuanced sensory experience, have brought Saint-Louis and sommelier Lydia Gautier together in an exclusive collaboration to sublimate the taste experience.The development of this new collection has fused two complementary arts of fire, porcelain and crystal, in favor of an intuitive experience inspired by the delicate ancestral Asian rituals of tea preparation and tasting.
Born at the crossroads of the West and the Far East, Apollo Tea also opens its crystal corollas to coffee.
