How to Make Jasmine Tea

Jasmine tea is a wonderful drink made from tea leaves that have been infused with the scent of the jasmine flower. There are a few methods of how to make jasmine tea, sometimes depending on the type of leaf that the tea is made from. When you know what time, temperature, and the amount of leaves to use, you will be able to prepare the perfect pot

How to Make Jasmine Tea

While there are variations of different jasmine teas, we will start with very basic instructions. You can generally use these steps for the most common types of jasmine tea, typically made from green tea leaves.

1. Heat Water – For jasmine tea made from green tea leaves, you will want the temperature at the higher range of green tea brewing temps, around 175F to 180F.
2. Heat Teapot – Avoid starting your hot tea brewing from a cold teapot. Fill the teapot (or other brewing receptacle) with hot water for a few minutes, and then dispose of the water.
3. Measure the Jasmine Tea Leaves – A good rule of thumb is to use one heaping teaspoon per 8 ounces of water.
4. Place the Tea Leaves in the Teapot – If you have an infuser, place the leaves there, then insert the infuser into your teapot. Otherwise, place them directly in the pot.
5. Add Hot Water – Pour the desired amount of hot water into the teapot. Cover the pot.
6. Steep Tea Leaves – Let the jasmine tea leaves steep, undisturbed, for about 3 minutes. You can extend or reduce the amount of steeping time, but we recommend staying within 2-4 minutes.
7. Remove Tea From Water – After the steeping time is complete, you should make sure that the leaves are not in contact with the water anymore. You can do this either by removing the infuser from the pot or by pouring the liquid into another container and filtering out the leaves.
8. Serve and Enjoy – Jasmine tea rarely needs any additives, but a touch of sweetener can go well with the floral aroma and green tea flavor.

Making Iced Jasmine Tea

When you prepare jasmine tea to be iced, you have some different options available to you. Cold brewing gives you the chance to enjoy a beverage that is already prepared at the drinking temperature you desire, while brewing with hot water is a much faster process.

Cold Brew for Iced Tea

Cold-brewed jasmine tea is made by placing tea leaves into cold, cool, or room temperature water and steeping for an extended period of time. We prefer our cold brew to be a little stronger than normal, so we will up the amount of tea leaves to water ratio, just a little over 1 teaspoon per 8 ounces of water.

Place your container of cold water and tea leaves in the refrigerator, making sure it is covered. You can leave for the mixture steeping for around 6 hours, or up to 12 hours. 

When the cold brew jasmine tea steeping is complete, filter out the leaves and either serve immediately or place back into the refrigerator where it will keep for 3-5 days.

Hot Brew for Iced Tea

Jasmine tea that has been brewed with hot water is also a good candidate for iced tea. While you can use how brewed tea at the normal strength, we recommend concentrating it by doubling the amount of tea leaves you would normally steep with. This allows for melting ice cubes if poured directly over them.

You may also refrigerate the tea directly after it has been steeped, but because you are putting a very hot receptacle into the refrigerator, there are some safety concerns.

What is Jasmine Tea?

Sometimes the name of a tea, especially one containing a type of flower or herb, means that the tea contains parts of that plant. This is not the case with jasmine tea, which is made from infusing true tea leaves with the scent of jasmine flowers. This is classically performed by flower blossoms being placed underneath tea leaves as part of their processing, and the process repeated until they are well infused.

Other ways that tea masters can get the aroma of jasmine into less expensive teas is by adding a prepared extraction of jasmine to the leaf blend, or even by using artificial flavoring that mimics the scent of the flower blossoms.

Jasmine tisanes, dried blossoms that you can infuse directly in water, are rare but they can be found. However, the taste and health benefits are often not worth it. While the scent of jasmine flowers is intoxicating, the flavor of the blossoms steeped in water is nothing special.

Tea Leaves Used for Jasmine Tea

Jasmine tea is most commonly made from green tea, but you can find infusions in just about any true tea leaf. There are even matcha blends infused with jasmine. While the taste and caffeine content can be different between each type of tea, the most important thing to know is that the temperature range can differ dramatically between them.

Jasmine Tea Temperature Guide

• Green tea with jasmine – 150F to 180F
• White tea with jasmine – 170F to 185 F
• Oolong tea with jasmine – 190F to 200F
• Black tea with jasmine – 200F to boiling (212F)

212 degrees Fahrenheit is the boiling point of water. If you do not have a tea kettle with a temperature gauge, you can estimate the lower temperatures. Get the water to a very light boil, then remove the kettle from the heat and uncover.

For every 20 seconds, the water should drop about 10 degrees from the boiling point.

Jasmine Tea Tips

Here are some tips to help with your enjoyment of the amazing jasmine tea.

• To sweeten jasmine tea, try adding a touch of honey or agave instead of regular sugar. The jasmine scent can bring out additional flavors in these sweeteners.
• Loose-leaf jasmine tea is generally understood to be of a higher quality than tea bags because broken leaves are often used, but there are some excellent full leaf teas that are packaged in expandable satchels instead of the typical paper tea bag.
• Jasmine tea will have the full caffeine content of the tea leaf it is infused in unless stated otherwise on the packaging. The name of a flower on the label does not necessarily mean that it is caffeine-free.
• After your tea is brewed, you can keep it in the refrigerator for 3-5 days. Be sure that the container is covered, and it has not been sitting out for more than 6-8 hours.
• Loose, dry jasmine tea leaves will keep for quite a while under the right conditions. Be sure they are kept in an airtight sealed container away from light (natural and artificial), and that the storage area does not experience major temperature swings.
• Jasmine tea should have a delicate flavor with a floral scent. If the taste is bitter, try lowering the temperature and length of time that you are steeping it.

Conclusion

We love jasmine tea in its many forms. The addition of the floral scent to teas that we already love makes the experience so much more enjoyable. Always remember to brew jasmine tea in the same manner as you would the tea leaf that it is based on – the jasmine qualities will not affect steeping time very much if at all.