Fuzhou Jasmine Tea - Introduction
Our Introduction
The following is translated and adapted from Zhuang Wanfang’s 1979 Famous Teas of China. This was a text originally designed to serve as a primer for students and tea drinkers to understand domestically produced teas. While still promotional and celebratory in tone, it was also written more than a decade before a new wave of commercial mythology began to develop. It is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history and origin of Chinese tea. It is enhanced and expanded with our experiences and more recent sources. Our notes and other sources cited can be found at the end.
(Fresh Jasmine & Cape Jasmine Flowers)
Adapted 1979 Text
“Tender tea scented with fragrant flowers, such aroma brings all men to their knees.” This line speaks of scented teas. Ancient Chinese people saw scented teas as something especially appealing[1]. Fresh and clean flowers are still mixed with tender tea leaves, bringing out the best in each other. At the height of each Summer, one walking by tea factories of Fuzhou will be most happily accosted by the aroma of tea. It is an experience similar to what the Song Dynasty poet Lu You said when he wrote “flower beds and tea afresh fill the market with fragrance.”
Scented teas are a unique category of production in our country(China). The teas of our nation are themselves a splendid forest of diversity, while scented teas are an even more rich and varied collection of wonders. Jasmine tea, magnolia tea, bitter orange flower(玳玳花), osmanthus, and pomelo flower tea are all named for the flowers used; other scented teas, like Flower Maofeng, Flower Longjing, or Flower Luochun, are named after the base teas used to make the final product. Of all these scented teas, it is jasmine tea that is found to have the best fragrance and robustness. It leads all other scented teas in scale of production, representing more than half of all Chinese-made scented teas.
(Jasmine Pearls base material being sunned in Fuding)
Tea cultivation has a long history in our country, and that of tea scenting is almost as long. According to historical records, we know that one millennium ago, the Song Dynasty emperors drank Dragon-Phoenix Tea that was scented with something called “Dragon Brain.” This was probably not jasmine[2]. The Ming Dynasty’s Gu Yuanqing more explicitly records that the technique of scenting tea with fresh flowers had been achieved. He wrote: “Before the sun comes out, place a pinch of tea in half-opened lotus flowers... At dawn take out the tea, wrap it in paper, and bake it dry. Repeat the process again and again until finished. Such is the making of lotus tea. As for flower scented tea, that means using osmanthus, jasmine, roses, orchids, plum blossoms or other half-open flowers, stacking them layer upon layer in a ceramic vessel, and binding them together with a bamboo-leaf. They should be heated altogether in a wok, allowed to cool, and then wrapped in paper for final drying. The ratio between flowers and tea should be around 1:3, as too many flowers will drown out the tea, and too few will mean no floral depth.” The processes described here are very similar to how jasmine or osmanthus teas are produced today.
(Cape & Standard Jasmine Flowers Scenting Dry Tea)
Given the massive investment of labor needed to produced such scented teas, it began as something only an elite few could enjoy. By the Qing Dynasty, the emperor and other feudal lords all enjoyed tea scented tea. Merchants in Fuzhou had come to excel at producing jasmine tea to satisfy this demand. Gradually, downstream merchants that were already involved in the tea trade of Northern China, Japan, Manchuria, and Guangzhou also moved to Fuzhou to join the action, rapidly expanding the scale of production[3]. On the eve of the Second Sino-Japanese War, 5,000 tons of jasmine and other scented teas were being produced, with most of it being sold in Northern China and Manchuria as “Fragrant Leaf Tea.” After liberation, as living standards grew, domestic supply could not meet the new demand for jasmine tea. Although it was traditionally only sold to Northern China, jasmine tea is now enjoyed in every Chinese province, and in an every growing list of foreign countries that have developed a taste for the tea. To meet this demand, Fuzhou and Suzhou have expanded their processing capacity, and new centers of scented tea production have started up in Hangzhou, Jinhua, Chengdu, Nanjing, Nanchang, Hankou, Huzhou and Yellow Mountain’s She County.
Scented teas are one of the five major categories of production in China, and jasmine tea the most famous among them[4]. Fuzhou is likewise most famous site of jasmine tea. Historically, all the green tea that was used in jasmine tea production was oven-dried material from other provinces. This had a considerably negative effect on the final product as the tea became damaged or damp in transit. Now, the Fujianese people have taken up the spirit of self-reliance, and developed oven-dried green tea of their own. Communes in Fuding, Ningde, Zhenghe, and other nearby places now grow cultivars like Fuding Dahao and Zhenghe Dahao to be used as a base material for jasmine tea. Both banks of the Min River are also now covered in jasmine flowers. The warm moist climate of Fuzhou combined with the rich dark soils of the area are perfect for jasmine flower cultivation. These locally grown flowers and tea are perfectly combined by Fuzhou processors. The highest quality products produced in Fuzhou factories combine tender, down heavy tea buds with the freshest and most pungent single-petal jasmine flowers. Such tea has a clear bur fragrant aroma, and unrivaled robustness over multiple infusions.
(Fuzhou Jasmine Tea as consumed at the factory where it is produced.)
There are different ways to enjoy this tea. In Beijing, Tianjin, and nearby parts of Hebei, people are accustomed to owning a small ceramic teapot or gaiwan. They will put three or four grams of jasmine tea in such a vessel, pour in boiling hot water, and then sip from it directly after a few minutes of infusing[5]. If entertaining guests, a greater quantity may be brewed and then divided into smaller cups. The cups could be white ceramic chinaware or clear glassware. An ideal brewing ratio would be 3 grams of tea for every 300ml of water[6]. Scented teas are best enjoyed straight, without the addition of milk or sugar.
When drinking tea, one should not forget about the people who made it. The scenting process requires a huge quantity of labor and considerable technical skill. Before any scenting can begin, the base green tea first has to be processed, dried, and stored at an internal relative moisture content no greater than 5%. Only in keeping it so dry can successful scenting be made possible. Only dry tea is able to effectively absorb the floral aroma of the fresh flowers. These fresh flowers in turn must be sorted and separated, with only partially opened flowers being utilized. The actual work of scenting, cold piling and baking, usually takes place at night. The freshest, most potent jasmine flowers must be picked between noon and dusk, and processed the same night they leave the bush. The best jasmine tea must go through a process of piling and baking at least three times, although is often done two or three times[7]. Each time, some seven layers of alternating flowers and tea leaves must be piled for 4-5 hours, thinned out for air, and then re-piled for a few more hours before picking out the spent flowers and baking the final product around dawn[8]. Now this whole process can be done machine, increasing labor productivity at least fourfold.
Notes
【1】The Chinese common people may have always loved scented tea, but its consumption among the rich was always contested. For Lu Yu, mixing tea leaves with anything else could only produce a vulgar brew no better than ”the waste water of canals and gullies.” We know that by the 11th Century, scented teas were among the tributes sent to court from what is now Northern Fujian Province. 800 years later, Gao Lian still chided readers about tea’s “true aroma,” as well as substances like jasmine, oranges, plum blossoms or mint that “steal” tea’s flavor and must thus be avoided when brewing. Nonetheless, some among the wealthy have long had an appreciation of scented teas.The 11th Century Cha Lu records that the common people added fruits and herbs when brewing their teas, while scented tea cakes were reserved for noblemen. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the upper classes in Suzhou, Fuzhou, Beijing, and Manchuria all widely consumed jasmine tea.
【2】Dragon Brain “龙脑” today refers to a species of camphor trees, and it was likely this tree’s white flowers, bark, or leaves that was flavoring Song Dynasty tribute tea. However, as the jasmine tea industry booms and support for traditional tea research grows, it is tempting for some to take a creative reading and speculate that the poet Su Dongpo or Emperor Song Huizong himself sipped on tea bricks flavored by the white jasmine flowers now more familiar to us. Some advertisers can’t resist the thought. Nonetheless, Tang & Song Dynasty spices we know were brewed with tea included ginger, salt, oranges and mint, but not jasmine. Jasmine flowers had by then been introduced and cultivated in Southern and Coastal China, but it is very likely that the winning combination of jasmine flowers and tea leaves may have been only known to farmers in coastal areas. Unlike dried mint or orange peels, jasmine flowers only produce a strong scent for a few hours after picking. It took generations of trial-error to bind this ephemeral aroma to dry tea leaves.
【3】Suzhou’s participation in large-scale jasmine tea production is likely older. It was the Japanese capture of Manchuria in the 1930’s and the Japanese administrations efforts to corner the jasmine tea market using the tea plantations they controlled in Taiwan that pushed merchants experienced in the jasmine tea trade to move to Fuzhou. These transplants from Suzhou lost their traditional customer base in the Northeast, and needed to find access to new markets in Southeast Asia and Europe.
【4】The others in that generation’s classification schema being Green, Red, Oolong, and Pressed Tea. White and yellow tea were only sometimes thought of as independent categories, and were far from “major.”
【5】Today an average person in Beijing or Tianjin would more commonly drink jasmine solo from a gaiwan, mug, or glass cup, rather than straight from the spout of a tea pot. The local habit of drinking directly from a Gaiwan, without anyof the other gongfu tea accessories, remains a lasting part of regional tea culture.
【6】You will probably want to at least double this ratio, meaning 3 grams for every 150ml of water, but there are old timers who still drink at these lower ratios, and may brew this way out of politeness when hosting a new guest whose tea habits are unknown.
【7】Now, more premium jasmine teas are advertised as having undergone four, six, or even nine rounds of scenting.
【8】We saw a very similar process underway at a factory in Minhou County, Fuzhou in August 2025. Only the sorting of flowers appeared to be partially mechanized, with all other steps still being done by hand. As shown in many of the pictures in this blog post.
(Slightly Exaggerated Recreation of Older Flower Sorting Technique; Material Sorted Out Before Piling).
Other Sources Consulted
Cai Xiang. 1050ish AD. Cha Lu “Record of Tea”. 1050. https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%8C%B6%E5%BD%95/10753719
Qin Wei. 2024. Study on the Origin & Development of Scented Tea. Agricultural Archeology. 195(05): p. 44-53.
Dong Ze. 2024. From Ancient Books to the Fragrance of Flower-Scented Tea: The History of Jasmine Tea Revealed by Ancient Scientific Documents.