JournalScent No. 02
Jasmine Snowfall: the flower that came from the west
Small-flowered jasmine over a thread of tea, with sandalwood and agarwood beneath. Jasmine Snowfall, 茉莉吹雪香, is the lightest of our four formulas and a good first one. The supplier’s Chinese name reads “jasmine, blowing snow”.
Two foreign flowers
Moli 茉莉, the jasmine of Chinese tea and scent, isn’t native to China. Plants of the Southern Regions (南方草木狀), traditionally dated to 304, records it among the plants of the far south:
Yeximing and moli flowers were both brought by foreigners from the western lands and planted in Nanhai. The southerners loved their fragrance and raced to plant them.
It writes moli as 末利, where we now write 茉莉, and adds that the moli flower looks like a white rose and smells better than the yeximing.
It then quotes an older travel account with a sharp opinion of the south. In that country, it says, the grains have no taste and the flowers have no scent. These two are the exception, because they came from somewhere else and did not change with the soil. And “the women there thread coloured silk through the hearts of the flowers, and wear them in their hair”.
Jasmine in the incense registers
In the incense registers, jasmine became a blending material. A note in Chen’s Incense Register, finished by 1322, says that “southern flowers can all be blended into incense”, and names moli first.
It also stood in for something rarer. The Song official Ye Tinggui writes that rose water came from the Arab world and seldom reached China, so people had begun steaming jasmine flowers and using the liquid instead. The register warns that much of this water was fake, and gives a test. Pour it into a glass bottle and shake it several times. If the bubbles rise and fall, it is real.
What is in it
Small-flowered jasmine, agarwood accord, sandalwood, dried tea, listed from the largest amount to the smallest.
- Small-flowered jasmine is the top of the scent.
- Agarwood accord is a blended fragrance that recalls agarwood. It is not the wood itself.
- Sandalwood sits underneath.
- Dried tea gives the thread of tea under the flower.
The materials are powdered, blended and shaped into beads by hand, then dried for at least twenty days.
When to wear it
In the day, in warm weather, or as the first of the four if you haven’t worn scented beads before.
See the entry: Jasmine Snowfall · 茉莉吹雪香