Comme des Garcons Series 1 Leaves: Tea

This is without a doubt one of the strangest fragrances I've tried. Even by CDG standards, this is challenging. My first tango with Tea was a confused, feverish whirlwind of stomach churning burnt-bandage and wet dog. Thankfully I've grown to appreciate it over time, and I feel strongly that it's worth a sniff by anyone who is feeling adventurous or bored by the world of fragrance. Despite CDG's reputation as one of the most unique and challenging perfume houses, often their scents are deceptively pleasant. While they contain a few strange, confusing, or industrial elements, theres always a detectable undercurrent of incense and cedar providing a more accessible backbone. Tea is the concentrated distillation of CDG weirdness, for better or worse. What I detect in Tea is over-smoked Lapsang Souchong, something mildly uric and fetid, a sort of burnt toast note, a strange latex note, and a nearly undetectable rose. The overall effect, as previously mentioned, smells at first like cooking a slab of meat on a spit over a fire made of hospital waste. It's incredible that such a friendly, pleasant looking set of notes can come together in such an aggressively polarizing way. It has the infamous train-wreck effect where something is unpleasant but you have to see how it develops so you can't stop sniffing. The dry down seems to take FOREVER to arrive, but when it finally does It's satisfying and unexpected. The rose blossoms out, the burnt notes become a pleasantly strong black tea note, and the aforementioned rubbery aspects become a hypermodern atmospheric darkness. It's fun to smell the discord slowly click into place. Definitely not a crowd pleaser. I wear this when I'm not going out and I feel like going on a bit of a fragrant adventure. There are ups and downs to sniffing Tea, but the overall experience is thrilling. 7/10

This is unique. It differs from the most of fragrances having the word "tea" in their names like the real brewed high quality tea leaves differ from Nestea or Lipton ice tea. So, if you are used to kind of "easy teas" (mostly green ones) like pleasant fancy fragrances from Bulgari or Elizabeth Arden, then be careful with this one. Tea from CDG is in-your-face old-fashioned freshly brewed tea made for you somewhere in a small town or village, in a very traditional and honest way. It means this tea is strong, energetic, bold, exactly what you can expect from original cup of tea from Far East, Asia or South America. It's smoky, it's dense, it's green and it's black. I use this scent time to time from it's very birth and I have never met anything with such a natural and the same time extravagant smell. It's quite comfortable and not irritating at all, but it's more about herbs and potions than fine toiletry,

This is love at the first sight for me. It smells like old wooden buildings, smoke and tar. Incredible scent. If you enjoyed "Tar" that unfotunately has been discontinued, you'll find in "Tea" the perfect substitute with black cities atmospheres, grey industrial nuances playing with black tea leaves. If you can't stomach avant garde synthetic perfumes, you shoudl avoid it. You'll find it vile. "Tea" has a nice longlasting (4-5 hours)and an average projection.

I think to be fair, I should review this again. My original review said CdG Tea smells like Band-aids, but none of my coworkers thought so, so maybe it's all in my head. But about the scent... I never knew anything about "mate", but it apparently gives the tea note a real push! In fact, of all the tea frags I have sampled, this HAS to be the strongest one, especially compared to the anemic (and pathetic) Bvlgari Pour Homme (although I happen to love Eau Parfumee au The Rouge, despite that almost overwhelming walnut note). I was also disappointed in Oolang Infini by Atelier Cologne, too much quaiac wood! But overall, DESPITE THE ROSE NOTE, CdG Tea is very masculine, and more of what I am looking for in a tea-scented fragrance. So far, the best tea fragrance I've found.

Seriously, the opening really does smell like a band-aid, exactly. And once that visual is in my head, there's no reason to wear any longer. I appreciate creativity, but why would I want to smell like a band-aid, even if it evolves over time? UPDATE: Not as bad as I originally thought, and 2 co-workers said they DON'T smell Band-aids.