Wonderful! The language of flowers in Victorian England has so much potential, and you do an awesome job utilizing some of it. I think this is my favourite thing of yours so far.
The only thing I might suggest is that you don’t really need to elaborate on the death by saying “tainted” Darjeeling; I think it could be a little more menacing without ever out-and-out pointing at the poison. But maybe then it would be too vague.
Hmmm … You hit on the word I wrestled with most in this story. I certainly didn’t want to outright use the word “poison” but thought I should state the foul play somehow. I may revise it…
This is fantastic. It’s dense and yet complete, which is so difficult within the limits. I think lostsalient is right; ‘the tea was cold and so was he’ does the trick on its own.
I’d like it to be the ‘unkind Darjeeling’ or the ‘unhappy Darjeeling’ but then most people would probably find that distracting or just plain stupid, and I am often best ignored. Plus an ‘un-’ word might well clash with ‘unheeded’ in an unpleasant way.
I like “clouded better,” though “tainted” didn’t jar me out of the story, either. Wondering if “unassuming” or something along those lines might work, but like Spirderj said, you’ve got “unheeded” just before it.
It makes me wonder who’s buried beneath the lilacs and lotuses.
Perfect piece of microfiction. I read the revised work with “clouded” instead of “tainted” and agree it lightens the piece much more. However when reading such a great piece of short work, every word counts and so I reread and reread and I felt that “She always wondered if the portents of their final breaths floated there.” was unnecessary but then again that’s just one girl’s opinion. Overall, this is such a lovely piece, it leaves me hankering for more.
lostsalient 
jesteram 
Spiderj 
falconesse 
OwsleyBear 
halfpenny