China

Chinese cassia (Cinnamomum cassia, currently C. aromaticum) is grown mainly in Guangxi and Guangdong. As in Vietnam, commercial cassia oil is distilled mostly from twigs and leaves rather than bark. Its main constituent is trans-cinnamaldehyde; ISO 3216 sets the characteristics of Chinese-type cassia oil.

Star anise (Illicium verum) needs the cool, humid hills of Guangxi, China's largest star anise province; China is the world's largest producer, ahead of Vietnam. The oil is distilled from fruit and leaves and holds over 80% trans-anethole in Guangxi samples. ISO 11016 covers Chinese-type star anise oil.

Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum) is toxic and hard to tell from true star anise once dried. Clear provenance comes first when buying fruit or oil.

See the Vietnam page for Văn Yên cassia and Lạng Sơn star anise.

May chang (Litsea cubeba) is a shrub or small tree, wild and cultivated in the southern Chinese hills: Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Fujian, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Guangxi. The oil is distilled from fresh fruit, picked in summer.

Its main constituent is citral (a mix of geranial and neral), usually most of the oil, varying with provenance. China is the main world source of may chang oil, which is in turn the largest source of natural citral. Citral isolated from may chang is used as a starting material for ionones and vitamin A.

Citral is on the EU list of labelled fragrance allergens and carries an IFRA limit for skin sensitisation.

The camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora) in China has many chemotypes. A 2023 survey of 974 trees from 35 populations in 13 provinces identified six main types: eucalyptol (1,8-cineole), linalool, camphor, nerolidol, selinene and mixed, plus a few rare types rich in methyleugenol or borneol. Oil is distilled mainly from leaves and twigs.

The linalool type gives ho oil (ho leaf, ho wood), a source of natural linalool and a replacement for Brazilian rosewood oil (Aniba rosaeodora), a species now listed in CITES Appendix II. Jiangxi alone has over 10,000 hectares of planted camphor, and China's camphor oil industry is worth more than 10 billion yuan a year.

The cineole type of the same species, grown in Madagascar, is ravintsara. The name camphor tree is therefore not enough to know how an oil smells; the chemotype must be stated.

Camphor is restricted in cosmetics in some markets and by IFRA; camphor-type oil cannot stand in for the linalool type.

Chinese cedarwood oil is nominally distilled from the wood of the Chinese weeping cypress, Cupressus funebris, which grows in eastern Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi and western Hubei. It is not a true cedar (Cedrus) but a member of the cypress family.

Commercial lots vary widely: alpha-cedrene 4 to 44%, thujopsene 2 to 37%, cedrol 2 to 23%. A 2008 study found beta-biotol in several lots, a sign that oriental arborvitae wood (Platycladus orientalis) was distilled as well, since mature C. funebris has become scarce.

Osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans) blooms for a short window in September to October across southern China, from Guilin (Guangxi) to Suzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu. The flowers are tiny; pickers shake the trees so they fall onto sheets. Flowers are often held in brine, then solvent-extracted into concrete and absolute. The absolute smells of apricot with a light leathery note, from lactones, ionones and linalool oxides.

Kushui rose is a natural hybrid, Rosa sertata × R. rugosa, grown in Kushui town, Yongdeng county, Lanzhou (Gansu), above 1,700 metres. Yongdeng has more than 100,000 mu and harvests over 25,800 tonnes of fresh flowers a year; the roses bloom in May. Kushui rose oil output is about 600 to 700 kg a year.

Kushui rose oil holds more citronellol than Bulgarian damask rose oil: about 40 to 47% citronellol and 9 to 11% geraniol. In 2013 ISO issued a separate standard, ISO 25157, for this oil.

Some damask rose oils grown in China hold 37 to 39% citronellol, above the Bulgarian range, and do not meet ISO 9842 despite being the same species.