Integration is the nature of tea which makes all the creatures full of vitality by the integration with mountains, waters, flowers as well as the people and the nature.  

The jasmine tea known as the "top fragrance in the world” is just the integration between the jasmine flowers and the tea.
With regard to the making of jasmine tea, there’s often an old saying about the cellared flowers, which means to mix flowers and tea leaves together so that the tea will slowly absorb the fragrance of flowers in a static state due to the features of flower scent and the fragrance absorption of the tea.

 

Refining Tea Leaves

Before the flowers are cellared, the primary tea needs a lot of procedures such as being screened, winnowed and color sorted to classify the grade, arrange the shape, improve the clarity and evenness so that the tea dhools are more capable of fragrance absorption. 

 

Refining Jasmine Petals

The time between 2:00~3:00PM is the best time to pick jasmine flowers because the high temperature then can make the concentration of essential oil in the bud reach the peak value. At 5:00 or 6:00PM when the harvested jasmine buds have arrived, they must be quickly spread to cool down and restore vitality so as to promote the blossom and fragrance.  

After 2 or 3 hours of treatment when the blossom rate is about 80%-85%, the flowers can be selected to remove the debris and promote the better blossom effect with more fragrance.  

 

Scenting

The selected jasmine flowers are in the shape of tiger claws which means they will be mixed with the tea leaves at the time. It’s a key process which means aims to fully mix the flowers and tea together so that the fragrance can be better absorbed by the tea.  

First, place the appropriate amount of tea embryos flat and then spread the flowers evenly on the surface based on the ratio till they are covered by more than ten layers. The top of all the layers should be covered with some tea leaves to prevent the fragrance spreading outside. Then, gently blend the tea and the flowers with the rake so that they can be evenly mixed with each other.  

Keep it cellared for some time and the experienced tea maker should strictly control the amount of flowers, blossom degrees, temperature, moisture, thickness and time during the whole process.  

 

Seperating

After being cellared for about 10 hours when most of the fragrant substances in the jasmine flowers are full absorbed by the tea, the flowers can separated from the tea leaves.
The process aims to separate the flowers from the tea leaves till there’re no stalks or petals in the tea leaves and no tea leaves in the flower residue.  

 

Drying

After tea leaves after the separation process should be dried to lock the fragrance, spread flat to cool down and evenly packed into containers to wait for the next process of being cellared which may be repeated by multiple times.

Flower maintenance, mixture and separation of the flowers and the tea leaves as well as the drying process make the complete procedure of cellared flowers.
For the tea maker of jasmine tea, the whole summer is doomed to be sleepless, which also fully proves that it really costs great efforts for “the cellared jasmine flowers to harvest the reputation of the most marvelous fragrance in the world”

Click to see how TenFu's tea master capture the essence of jasmine blossoms.↓