If you are still a complete beginner on your journey towards becoming a tea enthusiast, you might be confused with all the terms and jargon that seasoned tea lovers love to throw around, which is completely understandable. One of the most confusing stuff about the world of tea is the name of the teas themselves, where you’d typically either end up butchering the pronunciation of uncommon tea types or end up mistaking a tea type for something else due to their similar names.
In this article, we will be focusing on the latter and focus on these two tea types, namely Jasmine Green Tea and Jasmine Tea, which are often used interchangeably but are technically not the same.
Is Jasmine Green Tea the same as Jasmine Tea?
In order to address the confusion, we need to define the two tea types as simple as possible. Jasmine Tea, which originated from China, is arguably the most famous type of flower-scented tea. Traditionally, the process of producing it involves mixing the blossoms of either of the two jasmine variants, namely Sampaguita (Jasminum Sambac) and ordinary jasmine (Jasminum Officinale), together with either green, white, black, or other kinds of tea leaves.
Jasmine Green Tea, on the other hand, is a type of Jasmine Tea which uses green tea leaves as the base. Furthermore, green tea is the most commonly used base for Jasmine Tea, which ultimately led Jasmine Tea to become synonymous with it. In other words, this is just an example of the statement “All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares” but for our case, it should be “All Jasmine Green Teas are Jasmine Tea, but not all Jasmine Teas are Jasmine Green Tea” instead.
Different kinds of Jasmine Tea
To further remove any doubts left in your body, the following are the major types of Jasmine Tea according to the kind of tea leaves used. We have also included the descriptions for the taste of each kind so that you would have a wider understanding of their differences, as well as a way to encourage you to try them out sometime.
1.Jasmine Green Tea
As mentioned earlier, this kind uses green tea as a base and also has subtypes depending on how it was prepared. However, the most common way of making it is by simply using the jasmine blossoms as a sort of perfume in order to scent the tea leaves, which is then removed before packaging the green tea leaves. Generally, the flavor profile of this type of Jasmine Tea is often described as subtle and delicate, with hints of a fresh aromatic perfume finish.
2.Jasmine White Tea
Said to be one of the world’s rarest tea, high-grade Jasmine White Tea uses hand-picked white tea leaves that grows only in the Fujian Province in China which is then infused with the scent of Jasmine. It has a rather sweet yet subtle light grassy flavor with the smell of jasmine’s signature aroma. Although it’s called white tea, it actually has a pale yellowish color once it is steeped.
3.Jasmine Black Tea
Jasmine Black Tea, on the other hand, is simply black tea infused with the fresh aroma of jasmine blossoms, just like the earlier kinds. When steeped, it produces a reddish-brown color that almost looks like coke or whiskey, which is what typical black teas should look like. The only difference it has from other types of black tea is its aroma, which has little to no effect on the flavor of the black tea itself. It tastes like a light beer minus the acidity and alcohol content.