Thousands of jasmine flowers, picked at dawn, are laid over the tea leaves and buds in successive layers. The dry tea absorbs their natural fragrance deeply. The tea is then dried again, and the gesture is repeated several times, with fresh flowers just picked, to scent the tea right through to its heart. Finally, the spent flowers are removed by hand, one by one. It is in this way, following an ancestral craft, that Jasmin Chung Feng is born.

Mariage Frères calls it the “champagne of jasmine teas”: an exceptional harvest, an exquisite fragrance. The composition comes down to a few words, tea scented with jasmine flowers, and nothing more. No flavouring is added: the perfume comes from the flowers themselves, and from patience.

In the cup, the liquor is clear and delicate. The jasmine opens, fresh and slightly honeyed, with that green note of freshly picked flowers that artificial perfumes never capture. The green tea from China holds it all together, supple, and the finish is long and floral, without any heaviness. A Chinese tea that is drunk the way one breathes in a garden in the evening.

It is an afternoon tea, to be drunk plain, from a fine cup, or served with a Chinese or Cantonese meal, of which it is the traditional companion: dim sum, steamed fish, Cantonese fried rice. It also goes with a lychee dessert, almond biscuits or a fruit salad. It can take a second infusion, a little shorter.

Allow 2.5 g per 200 ml of water at 95 °C and three minutes of infusion, no longer, so that the green tea stays sweet beneath the flower. Jasmin Chung Feng is weighed and packed to order in our shops in Bordeaux and Nice, from the 5 g sample to the kilo, in a bag designed to preserve its fragrance. Store it in an airtight tin, away from any odours.