Jasmine green tea

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in China. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Fuzhou — 0–800 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. The jasmine fields are near sea level; the tea leaf scented here is generally grown at higher elevations elsewhere in the province.

• Hengxian — 20–300 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Jasmine is a lowland flower crop here; the tea base it scents is generally grown at higher elevation elsewhere.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Fuyun 7 — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Early, vigorous and very downy, giving plenty of silvery bud material. High yield relative to the older Fujian cultivars, and correspondingly less concentrated.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Pan-firing (Chinese fixation) — Denatures oxidation enzymes through dry contact heat while simultaneously initiating surface browning reactions in the leaf.
3. 3. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
5. 5. Scenting — Transfers floral volatiles into the leaf by repeated contact with fresh blossom, without leaving the blossom in the product.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Jasmine-scented green tea — A finished green tea re-enters the factory in the flowering season and goes round a loop — layer with fresh blossom, screen it out, re-dry — as many as nine times.

  Where it is practised: Fujian above all, with Guangxi and Sichuan also producing at scale. The base tea and the flowers frequently come from different provinces, which is why the trade is organised around moving finished tea to where the jasmine is.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Indole, Jasmine lactone.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Pan-firing (Chinese fixation)
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • locks EGC (epigallocatechin)
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins
• Scenting
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Indole
  • raises Jasmine lactone

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Jasmine scenting is documented in China from the Song dynasty and became a major export product in the nineteenth century. The technique of layering finished tea with fresh blossom and screening the flowers out afterwards has not changed materially since.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  3–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 4 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Flash-chilled iced tea

  2.5–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Tea bag brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  1.2–2 g/100 ml · 4–10 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Grandpa style

  0.6–1.1 g/100 ml · 80–88 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Vessels this tea suits

Recorded against the tea rather than against a brewing style, because the vessel does not always follow from the method — a whisk needs lateral room whatever the schedule says, and compressed leaf needs a pick before any method applies at all.

• Chinese lidded mug — The everyday Chinese desk vessel: leaf in, lid on, topped up all day.

Common mistakes

• Buying on visible flowers rather than on stated scenting cycles
• Using boiling water, which turns the jasmine soapy

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Jasmine tea vs Earl Grey — The most popular scented tea and the most popular flavoured tea, and the pair that best illustrates the difference between the two processes. Put the two side by side
• Jasmine tea vs green tea — Jasmine tea is green tea with an extra process, and the process is more involved than most people assume. Good scenting takes days of layering with fresh blossom, and the flowers are removed afterwards. Put the two side by side

Botanicals this connects to

• Jasmine — The scented tea is jasmine’s overwhelming commercial use, and the flowers are removed after layering rather than left in the packet.
• Magnolia bud — Anhui scents green tea with magnolia in the way Fujian scents it with jasmine, on the same layering principle.
• Honeysuckle — Blended into southern Chinese scented and cooling drinks alongside jasmine-scented green tea, and the two flowers are handled the same way.

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Beijing bowl tea and the northern tea house — Coarse tea sold by the bowl at a street stall for the price of nothing, jasmine-scented tea as the northern default, and a tea-house form whose selling point is the stage rather than the leaf.
• Everyday Chinese tea: the flask, the jar and the leaf left in — How most tea in China is actually drunk — loose leaf dropped into a lidded glass or a vacuum flask, topped up with hot water all day, never decanted and never timed.
• Indonesian tea customs — Grounds-in-the-glass tea drunk sweet in Java and unsweetened in the Sundanese west, jasmine tea from an unglazed clay pot with a lump of rock sugar, and a producing country whose crop mostly leaves as anonymous bulk.
• Jing cha — serving tea as an act of respect — The Chinese family ritual in which tea is served kneeling or with both hands to elders and parents-in-law — at a wedding, at a new year, at an apology — and the cup is accepted or not accepted in front of everybody.
• New-style tea drinks in mainland China — Brewed tea topped with salted milk foam, blended with fresh fruit, or cut with fresh milk — sold from shop chains at prices that make a queue newsworthy, and now the way a very large number of people in China consume tea at all.
• Sanpaotai and eight-treasure tea — The north-western Chinese covered bowl served with rock sugar, dried fruit and flowers alongside the leaf — a Hui Muslim hospitality form from Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai that has almost nothing in common with tea drinking further east.
• Sichuan tea-house culture — The Chengdu form of the Chinese tea house — bamboo chairs on flagstones, a covered bowl refilled from a long-spouted kettle, and an afternoon rate that buys the seat rather than the leaf.
• Yum cha — The Cantonese morning-to-afternoon meal whose name means “drink tea” and whose food gets all the attention — with a tea list, a refill signal, a thank-you gesture and a per-head tea charge that most non-Cantonese diners never notice.

Guides covering this tea

• Floral infusions
• Why tea absorbs smells, and why that is also how jasmine tea is made