Reference point
Pick a fresh cluster of Tonkin jasmine flowers and smell them at once.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Green, light, very faintly sweet. This is the least fragrant flower in the dictionary’s whole floral family.
It is closer to a vegetable than a flower, and that is exactly why it goes into soup. A strongly scented flower would ruin the bowl; Tonkin jasmine blends in.
Its green part evaporates almost instantly. After a minute almost nothing is left.
How to smell it
Smell right after picking, close to your nose. Then compare with pomelo blossom — both are small white flowers, yet their intensity differs by orders of magnitude. The lesson: “flower” does not mean “strongly scented”.
Why this one is hard
Because of expectation. Its Vietnamese name, thiên lý hương, contains the word for fragrance, so people expect a clear smell. In reality it is very reserved, and that disappointment leads many to conclude, wrongly, that it has none.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Tonkin jasmine
Floral family
Both are reserved. Tonkin jasmine is green and close to a vegetable; areca blossom is sweeter and radiates from the whole spray.
Scientific note
The volatile composition of Tonkin jasmine (Telosma cordata) has not been fully described in the literature available to us. The green impression most likely comes from six-carbon green-leaf compounds, the same group as freshly cut grass, but we have no data to confirm it.
In Vietnamese life
Tonkin jasmine soup with minced pork or crab is a northern summer dish. The trellis of Tonkin jasmine in front of the porch is so tied to the countryside that it has become a motif in poetry and song.