Jasmine and green tea leaf sit in balance here, a scented green tea from Fujian province, China, with grassy undertones beneath the floral top notes and something almost coffee-like lingering after the sip. The liquor pours pale and yellowy-green, light in tone, and the fragrance reaches you before the taste does. It is a well-balanced cup, giving the jasmine and the green tea itself roughly equal weight rather than letting one drown out the other.
Historians trace jasmine tea back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), though it took the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a period given over to all things floral, for the tea to catch on nationally across China. The scenting method used today has barely changed since, which says something about how well it works.
Production still runs on hand labour and timing rather than machinery. Workers pick jasmine buds on summer afternoons, choosing only the ones expected to open that same evening, a judgment call that takes real skill to get right. The buds are then set aside until night, when they begin to unfurl and give off their scent. At that point they are layered into basket trays with green tea leaves, and over several hours the leaves draw in the jasmine's fragrance and flavour. Ordinary scented teas go through this once; higher-grade ones, Jasmine Yin Hao among them, go through it twice to deepen the effect.
Kent and Sussex Tea and Coffee Company packs this tea fresh to order at its Pluckley factory in Kent. Serve it plain, without milk or other additions, and brew with fresh water at 75-80°C for one to three minutes, no longer, so the leaves don't scorch and turn bitter. Green tea, scented or not, has long been drunk for its supposed effects on heart health, digestion and general wellbeing, claims worth treating as tradition rather than settled medical fact.
