Rooted in China, Built for the World: To Summer and the Next Phase of Chinese Fragrance Innovation

As China’s fragrance industry moves beyond narrative-driven growth, To Summer offers a case study in how raw materials and systems may define its next phase.

Over the past few years, Chinese fragrance brands have emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments within the country’s consumer market. Drawing on shared cultural references and contemporary emotional experience, a new generation of local brands expanded consumer interest in scent, helping to establish fragrance as a meaningful category in everyday Chinese life.

Yet rapid visibility has its limits. As repeated reinterpretations of familiar symbols—osmanthus, tea, agarwood—began to blur into one another, signs of aesthetic fatigue emerged. For an industry that developed quickly through narrative and visual storytelling, the challenge now is no longer how to attract attention, but how to build the deeper foundations required for longevity. In this context, To Summer represents a shift in direction—from narrative-led growth toward structural development.

Entering the Global Fragrance System

Recently, To Summer announced that it had secured global exclusive extraction rights to Xinhui aged tangerine peel essential oil (新会陈皮精油) and successfully introduced the ingredient into the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) standards system. For the brand’s Chinese Raw Materials Return Project (东方香料归源计划), now in its third year, this development carries significance beyond a single ingredient.

For non-industry readers, IFRA functions as the regulatory and safety backbone of global perfumery. Ingredients recognized within its system can circulate internationally, be used by major fragrance houses, and enter professional perfumery through standardized channels. IFRA inclusion therefore marks the transition from local material to globally viable ingredient.

A year earlier, To Summer completed the extraction of Jingmai Pu’er tea absolute (景迈普洱茶净油) and submitted the material to IFRA’s global olfactory database. In Xinhui, the focus shifted to aged tangerine peel—an ingredient defined not by freshness, but by transformation over time. Guided by the principle “three years aged, fragrance naturally formed,” the brand applied low-temperature, high-pressure extraction techniques to peel matured for three years, yielding an amber-colored essential oil shaped by prolonged drying and oxidation.

What distinguishes these moves is not novelty, but system entry: ingredients historically circulated through regional trade routes are now being formalized within global perfumery infrastructure.

Raw Materials and the Limits of Scale

The first constraint lies in the raw materials themselves. Jingmai Pu’er tea is harvested only twice a year, with just one-tenth of tender leaves selected per season—and only spring tea used, due to its fuller aromatic profile and suitability for extraction. Unlike widely traded tea origins such as Ceylon or Darjeeling, Jingmai’s spring harvest window lasts only one month, contributing to its rarity.

Xinhui aged tangerine peel is even more time-intensive. After harvest, the fruit undergoes manual splitting, sun-drying, and at least three years of aging in ventilated earthen storage. The material must be repeatedly turned and aired before it reaches the softness required for extraction.

Technical constraints further limit scalability. Pu’er tea must first undergo traditional processing—fixation, rolling, and sun-drying—before extraction and transport to Grasse for alcohol treatment. Approximately 1,000 kilograms of tea leaves yield just one kilogram of tea absolute. Aged tangerine peel presents similar constraints: 100 kilograms of peel produce only 0.09 kilograms of essential oil, even with advanced extraction methods.

Beyond extraction, integrating highly localized Chinese ingredients into global standards requires prolonged regulatory coordination. To Summer became the first brand to transport Jingmai Pu’er material to France for extraction development—a process that took one to two years and required repeated coordination between Chinese and French teams, as well as navigation of agricultural export restrictions. With support from local authorities, the materials were ultimately approved for export and incorporated into the global fragrance system.

Ingredients as Cultural Infrastructure

At first glance, To Summer’s focus on raw materials may appear pragmatic. In practice, it functions as a form of cultural infrastructure—not in the abstract, but in tangible terms. By building extraction systems, standardizing ingredients, and embedding them into global frameworks such as IFRA, cultural values are carried not through storytelling, but through materials that circulate, endure, and scale.

Both Pu’er tea and aged tangerine peel reflect a Chinese understanding of time that differs from Western ideals of freshness. Before modern preservation technologies, China’s vast geography required ingredients to endure long-distance transport and prolonged storage. Over time, people observed that certain materials did not deteriorate, but instead deepened—developing complexity rather than losing vitality. Aging into value became lived experience, and eventually collective belief.

To Summer’s view is that the physical transformation of these ingredients—the deepening of color, the mellowing of aroma—offers global audiences an intuitive way to understand Chinese concepts of patience, accumulation, and endurance. Through material evidence, abstract philosophies become legible without explanation.

Rebuilding the Foundations of Chinese Fragrance

In global perfumery, “oriental fragrance” has long functioned as a stylistic category, often associated with amber accords and generalized exoticism. This framework has left little room for Chinese ingredients to be understood on their own terms.

To Summer’s approach challenges this limitation by shifting focus away from style and toward system participation. The brand observed that even within France’s largest natural fragrance houses—such as century-old family workshops—tea absolutes were primarily sourced from India and Sri Lanka. If Chinese fragrance is to regain agency within the global system, the process must begin with Chinese ingredients themselves.

In response, the brand partnered with the Robertet Group, a global leader in natural raw materials production to launch a ten-year Chinese Raw Materials Return Project in Jingmai, Yunnan, and established the To Summer Raw Materials Workshop. The long-term goal is to build China’s largest locally operated extraction center aligned with European perfumery standards. Beyond fragrance, the project also aims to extend the application of extracted botanical compounds into skincare and food, allowing ingredient value to circulate across categories.

According to To Summer, this marks a critical step toward industrializing domestic fragrance. A localized R&D system capable of releasing three to four original Chinese fragrance ingredients each year could, over the next decade, form the basis of a comprehensive Chinese fragrance map—an undertaking not yet fully realized even in more mature markets such as Japan and South Korea.

Looking Inward to Move Forward

As Chinese fragrance moves beyond its initial phase of rapid expansion, growth is no longer driven by visibility alone. The next stage will be shaped by the slower work of building systems—embedding cultural meaning into materials, processes, and standards that can endure over time.

In focusing on raw ingredients as both industrial and cultural infrastructure, To Summer offers a glimpse of what this phase might look like: not louder, but deeper; not faster, but more grounded. If Chinese fragrance is to sustain its momentum on the global stage, it will be through this inward turn—where structure, not spectacle, becomes the source of long-term relevance.