Jasmine vs osmanthus
The two flowers East Asia scents tea with. Both give enormous aroma and very little flavour of their own, and the difference is that one smells of flowers and the other of apricots.
botanical
What is being compared
Point by point
| Aspect | Jasmine | Osmanthus |
|---|---|---|
| Aroma | Heady, sweet and unmistakably floral, at a concentration few flowers reach. | Apricot and peach with a honeyed edge, and much less obviously floral. |
| Where it scents tea | Fuzhou in Fujian, where the climate suits both the tea and the flower. | Guangxi, where gui hua cha is layered with green and with black tea alike. |
| Brewed alone | Faintly sweet and slightly green, and surprisingly little like the scented tea. | Sweeter and more distinctly fruity, and more satisfying alone than jasmine is. |
| How it is processed | Blossoms are picked as tight buds in the afternoon and open after dark, when layering happens. | Tiny flowers are shaken from the tree onto cloths and dried or preserved in sugar. |
| Quality signal | Visible flowers in a scented tea mean spraying rather than layering — a bad sign. | Bright orange-gold flowers rather than brown, and an apricot smell in the packet. |
The short answer
Osmanthus is the better of the two to drink on its own; jasmine is the better to meet on tea. Neither substitutes for the other, and osmanthus is far less familiar outside China than it deserves to be.
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