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.

I wore this as a tip to the opening of Wimbledon 2015: the heady fragrance of Dunlop tennis balls, fresh out of the tube on a hot summer day!

What an odd smell! Begins with something dark, sooty and rubbery. Then it moves on to incense and ash. There's something else which I just can't put my finger on. However I want to smell, this isn't it. Could it be carbolic soap??

*Comme des Garçons Series 1 Leaves - TEA TEA opens with something little bit synthetic and rubbery, like plastic but also very green. We can fell the Mate herb so intense and litle bit dirty, together with the Lapsang Souchong, which is smoky and dark with something of tobacco. I feel also some kind of green tea. While time goes, this mixed green notes tone down and the floral bouquet of roses appears, making the scent calmer and smoothier. That's funny that i get something leathery mixed with a slightly animalic musc. This soft touch makes it more sensual and complex. The cedar/musky dry is modest and humble,simple, but also good. This perfume has many faces during its evolution, being not only a green scent but also many types of scents together, mixing many many green notes with a different touch that only Comme des Garcons brand knows how to make this happen! Great! P.S. It is a good option for those how can not find Tea For Two from l'Artisan - Quite smoky too and same kind of tea "Lapsang Souchong". But CdG is green in its essence, since the beggining, not being sweet. Cdg TEa is green, dark, smoky and unique. :)

As often happens with most of the Comme Des Garcons deliveries, Tea is a polarizing fragrance. Dreadful to some, amazing to others...almost no neutral feelings about it. I'm surely among the "amazed". Tea opens with a strong smoky lapsang and tar combo that may bring to mind of animalic notes, petrol, bandages, plastic and industrial-chemical compounds. In this phase Tea is incredibly bitter and challenging, indeed. A sweet woody creamy base starts to lurk in the back remarking its prsence with subtle yet noticeable rose-y undertones. The fragrance evolves melting the smoky top notes with the sweet base to create a minimalistic yet misterious drydown that while being much more conventional than the opening, it's still intriguing and head and shoulders above the avrage quality available at these prices. Overall Tea is definitely not a fragrance for everyone but, if you're not into crowdpleasers and feel like daring, this is one to take in consideration. Stock it before it's gone... Moderate projection, reasonable lasting power (6-8 hrs). Rating: 7.5/10

So the first smell I got after a (too) liberal application, was of an electrical fire, like when an extension cord starts getting fried. Really strong and unmistakable. I expected this rather unpleasant odor to dissipate quickly, but it hung around for a good hour, in time become slightly floral, the suffocating smell of a privet hedge in bloom, or too-strong jasmine. Then the scent shifted to a rather pedestrian and unoriginal incense/rose with a soupcon of pipi du chat. sillage is good (well, if you like it) and longevity is about 4-5 hours, with most of it being the latter combination I mentioned. I didn't detect a single note of tea in this. I would never have guessed this was supposed to be a tea fragrance. I love tea scents so that's why I tried it. Tribal Black Tea, Oolong Infini, and Tea for Two are all much nicer tea fragrances, in my opinion.

"Tea" is not green. It is gray like a city composed by tall buildings hiding the sunlight. Its opening is industrial and rubbery. I find difficult not to compare it with Bvlgari Black, without the vanilla accord. It smells plastic too. It is indeed a challenging composition. After this strange opening, "Tea" presents its rosy aspects together with the tea notes. I really don't know many types of tea so I cannot say for sure which one we're talking about. Unfortunately, the base is the least creative moment of "Tea". The fragrance is not what I would call longlasting. It stays pretty close to skin after 1-2 hours. Anyway, "Tea" is a must try fragrance for tea lovers and for people looking for modern fragrances.

Imagine bulgari au the vert dialed up to a thick concentration turning greenish black from the note medley, then add in some tar from a smoky industrial site where men are sweating with black faces from the fumes, smut, and smog in the air...And then imagine this metal perfume bottle in your hand. This is my take on Tea. For me its very unpleasant and I had to scrub it off with force because sillage and longevity is high. But it's worth trying for the challenge. It is evocative.

Leaves. It is a smoky scent made of leaves from black tea and rose petals. It also include notes of bergamot, tea matte and cedar. At first it has a medicinal smell but warms up to notes of tea matte with roses.