Imperial Jasmine Blossom

Imperial Jasmine Blossom comes from Fujian Province in China, a region which produces the largest share of China's tea, much of which is used to produce jasmine green tea.

In China scenting tea with flowers became popular during the Ming dynasty( 1368 - 1644). Jasmine was probably introduced to China as early as the 2nd century BC but did not become cultivated widely until the 1650's on wards. The area around Fuzhou city in Fujian Province became the centre of jasmine growing and by the beginning of the 20th century the region was famous for not only growing jasmine blossoms but producing enchanting jasmine teas as well.

Imperial Jasmine Blossom is entirely natural and is made using a painstaking process of layering freshly picked jasmine blossoms with green tea over a period of nights. Each afternoon, during the summer months, jasmine blossoms which are just about to open and are packed with essential oil, are picked and transported to the tea factory. There, they are carefully layered with the green tea overnight and then in the morning the spent jasmine blossoms are removed by hand and the process is then repeated over a period of 5 or more nights. With each nightly perfuming smaller amounts of the jasmine blossoms are used but initially it takes equal weights of tea to jasmine blossoms to perfume the tea! The tea is dried at the end of each nightly session ready for the process to be repeated the next night until the tea maker is happy with the correct amount of perfuming.