Jasmine tea substitutes

The honest rebuild, and better than most bagged jasmine tea. Any plain green tea works as the base, and dried jasmine blossom is cheap in Chinese groceries and health shops.

Best for

hot and iced jasmine tea, jasmine milk tea and boba, rice pudding, panna cotta and ice cream, poaching syrups

This is as close as you can get, and you control the intensity, which bagged tea does not let you do. Add the blossoms for the last minute of steeping only, because a long steep pulls a soapy, slightly bitter edge out of the flowers. Brew the green base at 80 C or 175 F for two minutes so it does not turn harsh.

The same base leaf without the scenting. Gunpowder green is the closest in character because it is a rolled Chinese green, which is what most jasmine tea is made from.

Best for

any recipe where jasmine tea is a background flavour, iced tea, tea-steamed rice or fish, milk tea

You keep the pale golden-green colour, the gentle astringency and the vegetal freshness, and lose the perfume entirely, so a jasmine milk tea made with plain green reads clean and slightly grassy rather than floral. If that matters, a single drop of orange blossom water or a few dried rose petals adds a floral shadow back. Boiling water is the enemy here.

Partly oxidised tea with a natural orchid-like aroma, which is the closest thing to jasmine perfume you will find in an unscented leaf.

Best for

milk tea and boba, custards, ice creams and panna cotta, iced tea, hot drinking

Fuller-bodied and honeyed with a genuine floral lift, so a dessert made with it tastes more rounded and less bright than the same dessert made with jasmine tea. It stands up to milk and sugar better than green tea does, which makes it the better pick for boba, and it is much harder to make bitter.

Distilled floral waters, used where jasmine's aroma is the point and the tea base is not, such as in syrups, rice puddings, whipped cream and glazes.

Best for

jasmine rice pudding and mochi, sugar syrups, glazes and frostings, sorbets and granitas, cocktails

Both are more intense than jasmine and easier to overdo. Orange blossom is the closer of the two, sweet and slightly citrus-floral; rose water tilts toward Turkish delight and reads distinctly Middle Eastern rather than Chinese. Add drop by drop, tasting, and always off the heat, since heat drives the aroma off. There is no tea character at all, so a drink made with only floral water tastes like scented water.

Barely processed leaf and bud, naturally soft, sweet and faintly floral, and the base of some premium jasmine teas.

Best for

delicate desserts and jellies, hot drinking, light iced tea

Gentler and hay-sweet rather than perfumed, and so light that milk, sugar or a strong syrup will erase it completely. Use it where jasmine tea was a subtle presence in something pale and delicate, and use noticeably more leaf than you expect, because white tea is bulky and mild.

True jasmine, Jasminum sambac or Jasminum officinale, briefly steeped in already-brewed tea.

Best for

a fresh, intensely fragrant version, syrups and cold brew

Wonderful when it works, but two warnings. Only use flowers you can positively identify as true jasmine and that have not been sprayed, because several unrelated garden plants are commonly called jasmine and some of them, including star jasmine and Carolina jessamine, are not food. If you are not sure, buy dried jasmine blossom instead.