Non-Tea Infusions · FFET10460
Rose tea (dried rose buds and scented rose tea)
Dried rose buds make a floral infusion; another form of rose tea uses tea leaves scented with roses.
Drinks made from the flowers, leaves, fruit or roots of plants other than the tea plant, and brewed like tea.
Rose tea can mean an infusion of dried rose buds or tea leaves scented with roses; this entry focuses on the dried-bud infusion. Pingyin County in Jinan, Shandong, supplies dried rose buds, with the main bloom running from late April to mid-May. Freeze-dried rose tea is also made there.
What
Rose tea can refer to an infusion of dried rose buds or to tea leaves scented with roses. The first uses rose buds for brewing; the second uses tea leaves as a base and roses for fragrance. This entry focuses on the first.1
When
The main rose bloom in Pingyin runs from late April to mid-May. The available material provides no dated early text naming rose tea, so the history of local rose cultivation does not establish when the tea originated.1,2
Where
The rose-growing area described here is Pingyin County in Jinan, Shandong, including the area around Cuiping Mountain. Rose tea is a generic name rather than a name restricted to products from Pingyin.2,4
How
Rose buds harvested during the flowering season are dried for brewing, and freeze-dried rose tea is also made in Pingyin. Scenting tea with flowers is a separate process: a Ming-dynasty text describes placing fragrant flowers and tea leaves in layers, but that passage does not name roses.1,2
Why
The local rose type described for Pingyin is a double-petaled red rose. Understanding rose tea also means distinguishing the dried-bud infusion from scented tea made with a tea-leaf base.4
Impact and influence
Pingyin has more than 60,000 mu of roses and about 20,000 metric tons of fresh flowers a year (2026 reports); these are rose figures, not rose tea output. Dried rose buds from Pingyin were formerly sold to southern herb and scented-tea markets, and local processed products include traditional scented tea.2,3