# Comme des Garçons — Comme des Garcons Series 1 Leaves: Tea

> Series 1 Leaves: Tea is a tea fragrance in name but an industrial smoky composition in practice. Released in 2000, it turns black tea and maté toward tar, rubber, and smoke before allowing a softer ro

## Essence
Series 1 Leaves: Tea is a tea fragrance in name but an industrial smoky composition in practice. Released in 2000, it turns black tea and maté toward tar, rubber, and smoke before allowing a softer rose-and-cedar drydown to appear. It is one of the house's most challenging and memorable creations.
## Scent Profile
The opening is deliberately severe. Black tea and maté are rendered as dark, tannic, smoky material with impressions of tar, petrol, burnt bandages, plastic, and asphalt. The effect can also feel green, rubbery, or faintly animalic. This is not a translucent tea accord, and it asks for patience.
Once the smoke settles, rose petals and a leathery musk soften the edge. Maté keeps an earthy, slightly mentholic bitterness underneath. The drydown is quieter: sweet, creamy cedar and musk retain a trace of the earlier strange texture without repeating its full force. The transformation from industrial smoke to rosy woods is the fragrance's defining drama.
## Performance
Tea has strong longevity and clear projection, especially during its smoky opening. Its persistence is an asset for those who enjoy it and a reason to apply cautiously for those who do not. A light application gives the drydown a better chance to emerge without overwhelming a room.
## Wearing Context
This is a cool-weather fragrance for autumn, winter, and deliberate personal wear. It is better suited to people who enjoy experimental leather, smoke, and tar effects than to an office or a conventional daytime setting. The profile is unisex, but the real dividing line is tolerance for its industrial opening.
## Comparisons & DNA
Dzing! is the most useful comparison because both explore leather, cardboard, rubber, and new-car textures; Tea is smokier and more tea-centered. The discontinued CdG Tar is an in-house companion for its industrial atmosphere. Bvlgari Eau Parfumee au The Vert is the opposite pole: where it offers pale, calm green tea, Tea offers a blackened, tarry version of the theme. Bulgari Black and Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia help place its rubbery facet.
## Reception
Tea inspires unusually firm reactions. Its supporters treasure the journey from artificial-looking smoke to sensual rosy woods and regard it as a clear expression of the house's early experimental voice. Its critics find the opening unpleasantly synthetic, burnt, or medicinal. The main value proposition is not ease of wear but a highly individual scent experience, so sampling is far more sensible than a blind purchase.
## Versions & Reformulation
Tea was released as an EDT in the 2000 Leaves series and is now effectively discontinued. Some related Leaves scents were later revived, but Tea has not returned as a regular retail fixture. There is no confirmed composing perfumer; confident attributions should be treated cautiously.
## Acquisition Notes
This is a sample-first fragrance. It is now difficult to find and commonly treated as a sought-after discontinued bottle, but the opening is too polarizing to justify buying without testing. Verify that any bottle is the original Leaves-series Tea rather than another tea-themed fragrance from the house.
## Notable Facts & Lore
- Tea belongs to the house's first themed series, Leaves.
- The series used plant leaves as a conceptual starting point rather than as literal naturalistic scents.
- Tea is widely treated as an extreme example of the house's early anti-perfume sensibility.
- Its eventual rose-and-cedar drydown is central to its reputation, not an incidental base.