Guilin — City of Osmanthus,
and Coffee on Yangshuo's West Street

The drink that represents Guilin best — green or oolong tea scented with dried osmanthus until it soaks up a sweet, gentle aroma, drunk hot all day. Some places brew it as a clear all-flower infusion; others blend it with green tea so a little astringency cuts the sweetness. It's the lightest on the wallet and the easiest to find, at tea houses, souvenir shops and local cafés citywide. Drinking it feels like sipping the scent of a Guilin autumn.

Rice wine (huangjiu) infused or steeped with osmanthus until it carries a soft, sweet aroma and a pale amber colour. It's low in alcohol and far easier to drink than the usual fierce Chinese baijiu. The Chinese have drunk it at the Mid-Autumn Festival for centuries, and in Guilin it is both a drink and a favourite souvenir — pretty bottles to carry home. Sip it slowly and a touch warm and the floral note comes through clearest. A whole city's story in a single glass.

It's a sweet rather than a drink, but osmanthus cake is the inseparable partner to osmanthus tea. It's made from soft glutinous rice flour scattered with real osmanthus, honey and rock sugar — springy, lightly sweet and clearly fragrant, cut into neat bite-sized pieces. Pair it with hot tea and the two are made for each other. You'll find it at souvenir shops and sweet stalls across Guilin; it's a light, mess-free thing to take home.

Yangshuo's West Street (西街) is where Western coffee meets the karst peaks of Guilin. Since backpackers poured in from the 1980s, it has filled with Italian-coffee cafés, live-music bars playing everything from jazz to Chinese opera, and places to nurse a cold beer and watch the crowd. There's even a Starbucks Reserve Roastery — the only one in China with a terrace looking out at the limestone peaks. Honestly, today it is a full-on tourist street, busy and pricier than elsewhere, but the atmosphere of sitting in the middle of an old lane under the peaks has a charm all its own.

Beyond the tourist-focused West Street, Guilin city itself has more independent specialty cafés opening all the time. Small, serious-about-beans places pour a steady pour-over and latte, with a quieter mood and more locals than Yangshuo. Some play with hometown ingredients — dropping osmanthus into a latte or a signature drink. If you take your coffee seriously and want to escape the West Street crush, these in-town cafés are the answer.

It reads as strange but it's the most genuinely local thing of all — 油茶, oil tea, made from tea leaves pounded and fried in a pan, then simmered into a thick, slightly bitter, slightly salty green tea broth poured over puffed rice, fried peanuts, dough bits and scallion. The first sip can surprise you, but it grows on you fast. The Yao and Zhuang people around Gongcheng take it as a social ritual — "beating" the tea (打油茶) — and it's recognised as cultural heritage, filling enough to stand in for a meal. Try a set and you'll see why locals drink it every day.

The drink that sums up Guilin in a single cup — green or oolong tea scented with dried osmanthus into a soft, sweet aroma, drunk hot all day. It's the lightest on the wallet and the easiest to find, and the best place to start if you want to know the osmanthus flavour. Order it with osmanthus cake and you'll understand why this city loves the flower so much.

Rice wine infused with osmanthus, sweet and soft and low in alcohol, far easier to drink than the usual Chinese baijiu. It's been the Mid-Autumn Festival drink for centuries. Sip it slowly and a touch warm for the clearest floral note, and the pretty bottles make an easy souvenir to carry home — a whole city's story in a single glass.

A hot, savoury drink made from tea leaves pounded and fried in a pan, simmered into a thick, slightly bitter, slightly salty green broth poured over puffed rice, peanuts, dough bits and scallion. The first sip can surprise you but it grows on you. It's a half-meal drink the Yao and Zhuang take as a ritual — a piece of Guangxi heritage worth trying at least once.

Some of Guilin's new-wave cafés play with the city's signature ingredient, turning osmanthus into a latte, a milk tea or a cold floral drink. It takes the oldest thing in the city and puts it in a modern glass — lightly sweet and fragrant. If you spot it on a menu, give it a cup: it's a way to drink the scent of Guilin in a café version you won't easily find elsewhere.