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How does plain tea gradually become scented tea?

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The practice of adding spices or fragrant flowers to tea has a very long history. In the Northern Song dynasty, Cai Xiang's "Record of Tea" mentioned spiced tea: "Tea has its true fragrance, but those who offered it as tribute would slightly blend in borneol and paste to enhance its aroma." By the Southern Song dynasty, there were already records of jasmine-scented tea; in the annotation to Shi Yue's ci poem "Stepping in the Moonlight: Jasmine," it says: "Jasmine is produced in the Lingnan region... the ancients used this flower to scent tea." By the Ming dynasty, the technique of scenting tea with flowers became increasingly refined, and a great many flowers could be used to make tea. According to the "Tea Manual," there were as many as nine kinds: osmanthus, jasmine, rose, wild rose, orchid, orange blossom, gardenia, costus, and plum blossom.

The practice of adding spices or fragrant flowers to tea has a very long history. In the Northern Song dynasty, Cai Xiang's "Record of Tea" mentioned spiced tea: "Tea has its true fragrance, but those who offered it as tribute would slightly blend in borneol and paste to enhance its aroma." By the Southern Song dynasty, there were already records of jasmine-scented tea; in the annotation to Shi Yue's ci poem "Stepping in the Moonlight: Jasmine," it says: "Jasmine is produced in the Lingnan region... the ancients used this flower to scent tea."

By the Ming dynasty, the technique of scenting tea with flowers became increasingly refined, and a great many flowers could be used to make tea. According to the "Tea Manual," there were as many as nine kinds: osmanthus, jasmine, rose, wild rose, orchid, orange blossom, gardenia, costus, and plum blossom. In modern flower-scented tea production, besides the flowers mentioned above, there are also white orchid, bitter orange, and pearl orchid.

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