Shiso vs basil
Two mint-family leaves that taste of anything but mint. Both carry cinnamon and anise notes, and both come in varieties different enough that the name alone tells you very little.
botanical
What is being compared
Point by point
| Aspect | Shiso | Basil |
|---|---|---|
| Flavour | Distinctly spicy-herbal with an anise-cinnamon lift, unlike anything else in the family. | Sweet and clove-like in the Genovese type, and far more aniseed in the Thai. |
| The varieties | Green and red Japanese shiso, Korean kkaennip and Chinese zi su, all Perilla frutescens. | Genovese, Thai, holy basil and lemon basil, and holy basil is a different species entirely. |
| As a drink | Red shiso juice is a Japanese summer drink, boiled briefly and taken with vinegar and sugar. | Brewed in southern Europe and Southeast Asia, and tulsi is a drink in its own right. |
| The colour trick | Red shiso turns bright pink on acid, which is most of the appeal of the drink. | No comparable effect. |
| Fresh or dried | Fresh for the drink; dried keeps flavour reasonably and loses the colour. | Fresh in nearly all uses; dried basil is a shadow of the leaf. |
The short answer
For a drink, red shiso is the more interesting of the two and the one with a specific preparation behind it. Basil’s drinking tradition is mostly tulsi, which is a different species again.
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