Jasmine Tea Scenting Technique (Zhangyiyuan)

The jasmine-tea scenting technique, represented by Zhangyiyuan (founded 1900), is the traditional craft of scenting green tea with fresh jasmine over repeated rounds so the leaf takes on the flower's fragrance — rooted in Beijing's love of scented tea.

Its core step is yinzhi: tea leaves are layered in proportion with jasmine picked that day; once the leaf has drawn in the scent, the spent blossoms are sieved out, and the round is repeated several times — the more rounds, the fuller the aroma — until the finished tea is fragrant with not a petal in sight.

The jasmine-tea scenting technique is inscribed as national intangible cultural heritage — the core craft of Beijing's scented-tea culture, bound up with the everyday old-Beijing memory of a pot of jasmine tea.

At historic Beijing tea houses such as Zhangyiyuan you can learn about the scenting craft and taste the tea, sensing in its aroma the city's distinctive scented-tea custom.