Jasmine Tea vs Green Tea: Differences Explained
When it comes to the world of tea, there are many types to choose from. Even when you aren’t considering what flavor tea to choose, there are different types of tea such as black tea, green tea, jasmine tea, oolong tea, and others.
Navigating the world of tea may seem fairly easy at first, but it won’t be long before you start to stumble along and begin to wonder just what the difference is between some teas.
While there are many different types of tea to analyse and compare, this article will only focus on jasmine tea and green tea. The two types are often confused and are closer in resemblance than they are to black tea, so let’s look deeper at their differences.
Jasmine Tea vs Green Tea At A Glance
- Green tea is overwhelmingly considered to be one of the healthiest drinks on the planet.
- Drinking green tea may improve your brain function thanks to natural caffeine and amino acid L-theanine, an amino acid that can cross the blood-brain barrier and work to reduce anxiety. Green tea can also improve your mood, vigilance, reaction time, and memory.
- Jasmine tea can easily be infused into any other type of tea, though usually it is mixed with green tea for benefits of both types.
- Jasmine tea has a delicate, soft flavor whereas green tea can be a bit more bold and strong.
- Both jasmine tea and green tea can help aid weight loss. Green tea increases the rate at which your body burns fat and jasmine tea is naturally low-calorie.
- Some studies have shown that regularly drinking jasmine green tea may reduce your risks of cancer. Thanks to a high level of antioxidants in the tea, jasmine tea (with a green tea base) can eliminate pollutants and risk factors that you may consume with your food. Jasmine tea can also kill mutated cells when mixed with a black tea base instead of a green tea base.
- Green tea may protect your brain from early aging and fight against common diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Some compounds in green tea may also protect you against dementia.
- Jasmine tea is very relaxing and can greatly reduce stress. Appealing to all five senses, jasmine tea elevates your mood and promotes relaxation.
- The sweet flavor of jasmine tea can invigorate your mind and perk you up after a tiring day.
Jasmine Tea Advantages
- Jasmine tea is often mixed with green tea to provide you with the benefits of both green tea and jasmine tea at once. It can, however, be mixed with black tea for specific benefits or just to fit the drinker’s preference.
- Not only can jasmine tea improve your immune system, it can protect against diseases and alleviate aches and pain. Jasmine tea contains an anti-inflammatory compound that moves throughout your body to relieve pain naturally and without negative side effects.
- When jasmine tea is mixed with green tea, it contains high levels of catechins while when brewed with black tea, it contains high levels of theaflavins. Both work to fight cancer causes and prevent the body from deteriorating. Jasmine green tea also helps regulate insulin production and keep it at a steady level to stave off diabetes.
- Jasmine tea has a softer taste that may be better suited for those who aren’t a fan of strong tea. It’s an easy way to drink green tea without the strong flavor green tea often gives off.
Jasmine Tea Disadvantages
- Jasmine tea tends to be more pricey than green tea. Growing and picking the jasmine flowers is an expensive and delicate process which is what causes the price to increase.
- Even though the green tea leaves infused in jasmine tea are typically of lower quality, the total production cost is higher and therefore, so is the price.
- Because jasmine tea is used to mask the flavor of green tea, it can have a strong sweet flavor that some drinkers don’t enjoy. Most jasmine teas don’t need sugar added so if you typically drink your green tea without sugar, it’s likely you’ll find jasmine tea much too sweet.
- It’s always mixed with another type. Jasmine tea is never produced without another tea for the base, so you’ll never encounter pure jasmine tea. In general, jasmine tea is mixed with green tea and it can be difficult to find a jasmine tea that is mixed with another tea base such as black tea or white tea.
Green Tea Advantages
- Green tea is considered one of the healthiest beverages on the planet. It is rich in antioxidants that can cleanse your body of pollutants and can boost your immune system.
- It also has special compounds that can reduce your risk of cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and dementia. Green tea also has the ability to eradicate bad breath!
- Seeing as green tea is fairly easy to produce and brew, it’s cheap. You can find expensive green tea if you look for it, but green tea tends to run much cheaper than other tea flavors and types so it’s a budget friendly option.
- Green tea is a common base for many other teas so even if you don’t like the flavor of pure green tea, you can still get the benefits of it from somewhere else. It may be difficult to find pure green tea that is also flavored differently, but just because green tea isn’t 100% pure does not mean you’re missing out on all the health benefits it provides.
Green Tea Disadvantages
- It will always only be green tea. Green tea won’t be mixed with white tea or black tea unless you do it yourself. It can come in a different form such as a blended tea or matcha green tea, but the base will always be green tea.
- Green tea has a very strong flavor. Most drinkers will need sugar or milk with it which can be unfortunate if you’re planning to take your tea to go, but it’s not an impossible roadblock.
What’s the Difference Between Them?
Green tea, much like black tea and oolong tea, is made from leaves from the Camellia sinensis plant. However, the leaves are picked while fresh and green, before they have the chance to oxidize or wither, which contributes to the unique color and taste of green tea.
Green tea is grown in rows, in either sunlight or shade, and heavily pruned until the harvest. After the harvest, the tea is processed, cleaned, dried and whatever else is necessary before consuming. Despite the similar process there is a variety of green tea, due to the usage of slightly different growing processes that allows for changes in taste, nutrients and caffeine levels.
Jasmine tea is made from the highly fragrant jasmine flowers from the jasminum plant. The process for harvesting and preparing jasmine tea is not simple which explains the elevated price on real jasmine tea.
Jasmine flowers have to be picked early in the day, when the flower is closed, and kept cool until they naturally open during the night. Upon opening, the flowers will begin to release their strong aroma, and need to be immediately combined with tea to absorb the fragrance. Once the tea absorbs the fragrance, which requires precisely placed layers of tea leaves and jasmine flowers and many hours, the tea can then be dried and packaged.
Jasmine tea, in essence, is the blend of jasmine flowers with tea leaves. The most common variety of jasmine tea is actually blended with green tea. This means most jasmine tea is, in fact, green tea. However, jasmine tea is also commonly found combined with oolong, black and white tea leaves as well.
Variety
When comparing green tea and jasmine tea, most would likely refer to the most common versions of each respective tea. However, both jasmine and green tea come in a variety of forms.
The most common green tea is sencha, which is really what we would consider to be a “regular” green tea. Another common green tea option is matcha, which not only tastes completely different but is usually served differently and for different purposes than sencha. In addition to sencha and matcha, there is gunpowder green tea which is a more caffeinated option and blended green teas, such as the most common variety of jasmine.
Jasmine tea comes from jasmine flowers from the jasminum plant. So in essence, jasmine tea is not actually “jasmine tea” but jasmine flowers blended with other tea bases. As mentioned above, the most common version of jasmine tea is in fact blended with green tea leaves. That being said, unlike green tea, jasmine tea does not only come as green, since the flowers are not limited and can be blended with any type of tea.
Jasmine flowers are often blended with white tea, and since white tea has a light, almost flowery taste, the two complement each other perfectly. On the opposite end, strong and earthy black tea leaves are combined with jasmine flowers which blend to create a more light and floral black tea. In addition to jasmine blended with green, white and black tea, you may have heard of jasmine pearls which are a perfect pearl or pea shaped blend of the sweet flowers with oolong tea leaves.
Verdict: Though green tea has some variance, since jasmine tea is solely flowers blended with any tea base, there is just a far larger variety of options. On top of this, since jasmine tea is blended with different tea bases, the variety is not only wider but the difference in the taste is greater.
Health Benefits
Green tea can soothe a sore throat and some would even consider it to be a superfood, but regardless of why you drink it, green tea offers a variety of health benefits to all of it’s drinkers.
Green tea has a variety of antioxidants which are not only necessary for your body, but also are believed to help prevent various cancers. The antioxidants will also increase your blood’s antioxidant capacity which has been proven to help prevent heart disease.
On top of the beneficial antioxidants, green tea is believed to be beneficial to weight loss. In addition to caffeine, which many find to be extremely beneficial and crucial in their fat burning routine, green tea is found to boost your body’s metabolism. It’s also a good tea for intermittent fasting.
One of the main reasons people drink green tea, specifically matcha tea, is to get some caffeine in another form than coffee. Ask any coffee drinker if coffee improved their brain function and they will say they can’t function without it. Green tea, in every form except for decaf, has caffeine similar to coffee.
However, green tea really isn’t an alternative to coffee, since the caffeine will hit you completely differently. With matcha green tea, the caffeine will not hit you all at once, but slowly throughout the day. With other varieties of green tea there is just enough caffeine to get your brain working and concentrating, without the rush of caffeine that usually causes jumpiness from coffee.
There are many beliefs surrounding the health benefits of green tea on top of the ones already mentioned, some research has found green tea to potentially help prevent dementia, parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and maybe even lead to a longer lifespan.
Since jasmine tea is simply flowers blended with tea leaves, jasmine tea takes on whatever benefits the tea leaf contains. As described above, the most popular variety of jasmine tea is blended with green tea, which means the most popular variety of jasmine has all of the same health benefits as green tea. That being said, some varieties of jasmine tea blended with black, white, or oolong tea will offer a different set of health benefits.
Verdict: Since the most common variety of jasmine tea is blended with green tea, and therefore has the same health benefits as green tea, this category is truly a draw. However, different jasmine tea blends with different tea leaves will of course offer different health benefits (though most teas offer similar health benefits.)
Price
As with food or alcohol, both jasmine and green tea can vary quite a bit in price and quality. Growing and picking jasmine flowers is no easy task, which explains why jasmine tea is usually quite a bit more expensive than green tea. That also explains why the most common jasmine tea doesn’t even use real jasmine flowers, but instead an artificial jasmine flavor.
That being said, even when comparing common artificial jasmine tea, with green tea, green tea tends to be less expensive. However as noted before, green tea can vary quite a lot in price, for example, matcha green tea is generally more expensive than sencha and many jasmine teas, though within the matcha world the price can vary quite a lot as well.
Verdict: Since both jasmine and green tea are available at all price points, it is somewhat difficult to compare the two, however, green tea would have to take a slight edge in this category. The point is going to green tea due to the fact that the most common jasmine tea is not only made from artificial jasmine flowers, but is also generally more expensive than the most common sencha green tea available.
Sweeteners
While both jasmine and green tea are enjoyed with and without sweeteners, many tea drinkers, especially “beginner” tea drinkers will likely prefer jasmine tea without a sweetener over green tea. Jasmine tea is made from jasmine flowers, and while these flowers aren’t technically sweetened, they have such a sweet aroma that many would not feel the need to add a lot if any sweetener.
Green tea, on the other hand, is known for being a strong and often bitter tasting tea, which is why many non-regular tea drinkers avoid it. While jasmine is a strong flavor, it tends to be far softer than green tea, yet it will still overpower that bitterness of green tea when they are blended together.
Green tea’s bitterness explains why many newcomers to the tea drinking world tend to enjoy sencha green tea with honey and/or sugar or matcha green tea in the form of a latte, mellowed out by a milk/cream and sweetener.
Verdict: While jasmine and green tea taste equally delicious with the addition of sweeteners, jasmine tea takes the win for this category since it can be enjoyed equally without any added sweetness. Though many seasoned tea drinkers would argue green tea is equally or even more enjoyable without the addition of sweeteners, most non-tea drinkers may find the bitterness unbearable.
Conclusion
If you don’t really mind strong tea or mixing some extra sugar and milk in, green tea is a good option. However, because jasmine tea has many different options and includes all the benefits of the base tea it uses, Jasmine tea is the winner here.
It has a much milder taste and while it is a bit more expensive, it comes with the option of being green tea, black tea, white tea, or any other type of tea you could want. It’s really just up to you which type of tea you want with the jasmine flavor.
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