Usually, a man presents a rose or a bouquet to show his love for his girlfriend. But, Mr Liu, 28, who works at a Beijing-based joint venture, used a glass of green tea floated with a bright red rose, a pure white iris and golden chrysanthemum flowers to welcome his girlfriend on their first date.

"Making flower tea requires careful choices of flowers and tea to make the drink perfect," said Liu, who was satisfied with his "masterpiece," that had surprised his date and pleased his date.

Liu said that drinking flower tea gives people a sense of emotional appeal refreshment.

Liu's love for edible flowers is a spreading trend in Beijing.

Currently, drinking flower tea has become a new fashion among Beijingers, especially young people, who usually drink the tea during get-togethers or at birthday parties hosted by friends. Normally beer, spirits, soft drinks and fruit juice are drunk on such occasions.

Annie, a woman in her 20s, often buys dry edible flowers from the supermarket to make tea.

She said she first saw the flower-tea drink at a friend's birthday party and has been drinking it ever since.

"It's so beautiful and tasty and it (drinking flower tea) makes you feel so different and brings you a kind of new energy," Annie said.

Sun xiumei sells 25 kinds of dry edible flowers, such as nasturtium, honeysuckle, lily, chrysanthemum, roses and globe amaranth at the Sogo supermarket. She said the prices of the dry flowers range from 50 yuan to 140 yuan per 500 grams, depending on their quality, functions in health care, nutritious elements and where they are produced.

Many of the flowers are produced on high pollution-free mountains.

Despite the high prices, consumers, mostly females between 20 and 40, and males between 20 and 30, have flocked to her flower stand at Sogo, according to Sun.

Records of edible flowers date back more than 2,000 years. Qu Yuan, a poet in the Chu Kingdom of the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), made the earliest record of edible chrysanthemum in one of his poems.

The rich nutritious elements and health-care functions of edible flowers attracted people, said Zhang Dongsheng, deputy secretary general of the China Food Science and Technology Society.

Drinking tea mixed with edible chrysanthemum or nasturtium is be-coming popular among the Chinese people today.

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