Jasmine Tea Scenting: Fuzhou's Fragrant Craft

A Craft of Timing

Jasmine tea is not flavoured with oil or essence: it is scented, by layering green tea with fresh jasmine blossoms and letting the flowers open into the leaf overnight. The process is repeated — several times for a good tea, more for the best — and it depends on a flower harvest that lasts only a few weeks each summer. Fuzhou, in Fujian, is the craft's historic home, and the technique there is still hand-managed rather than industrial.

The Scenting Process

Fresh jasmine is picked in the afternoon, when the buds are closed, and opens in the evening as the temperature drops. The tea base — usually a green tea with good structure — is layered with the flowers in a heap and left overnight, so the leaf absorbs the scent. By morning the spent flowers are removed and the tea is dried to stabilise it; the cycle repeats for the next batch. The finest teas are scented five to seven times, which is why they cost what they do.

The Flower and the Season

Fuzhou's jasmine blooms from early summer to early autumn, and the craft is tied to that window: the tea you buy in spring was made last summer. Visitors who arrive during the flower season can watch the layering in workshops that open their doors, and the smell is the most memorable part of the visit — the tea halls in the city are dense with it in July and August.

Where to See and Taste It

Workshops and tea companies in Fuzhou run demonstrations and tastings, and the city's tea markets sell everything from everyday scented green to single-lot premium leaf. Elsewhere in China, the craft appears in tea museums and specialist shops, but Fuzhou is where the flower and the trade meet. Combine the visit with Fujian's other crafts: porcelain, lacquerware and puppetry are all within the province.

Buying Jasmine Tea

Look at the leaf: good scented tea is mostly leaf, with few or no dried flowers left in, because the flowers were removed and replaced during the cycle. Smell it twice — the dry leaf and then the brewed cup — and check that the fragrance is fresh rather than heavy or soapy, which suggests flavouring. Ask how many times the batch was scented; carvers of this craft are as direct about timing as tea makers anywhere.

Frequently Asked Questions