Jasmine Tea Benefits
5 Reasons Why It's Healthy

If you like flowers, you will love the delicate, floral taste of jasmine tea.

Jasmine tea is a type of scented tea. To make scented tea, tea leaves are mixed with flowers until their perfume has been absorbed. The tea is then baked gently in an oven. For high-quality scented teas, the process is often repeated several times to ensure a strong fragrance.

You can scent any kind of tea with jasmine: green, white, oolong or even black. However, the sweet, floral perfume of jasmine flowers tastes best with green tea.

Most jasmine tea is made from green tea.

In this article, you will discover five jasmine tea benefits, and find out why this special tea combines the advantages of both green tea AND jasmine.

Want to slow down the effects of aging and stay young? The antioxidants in jasmine tea can help protect your body against damage from free radicals.

Free radicals are oxidized molecules that have unpaired electrons. As they circulate through your body, they steal electrons from other molecules to replace the ones they are missing. This process can damage your body's cells. It is associated with the aging process.

Drinking jasmine green tea can help prevent damage from free radicals.

A 1997 study by The Chinese University of Hong Kong found that drinking jasmine green tea could protect red blood blood cells from cell death caused by free radicals.

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Drinking green tea can help you lose weight. This benefit has been attributed to green tea's synergistic combination of caffeine and antioxidants, especially EGCG.

A high quality jasmine contains the same blend of antioxidants and caffeine as high quality green tea.

It is especially good for dieters because of its naturally sweet taste. Even people who would normally add sugar or honey to their tea often find that they enjoy jasmine tea without it.

However, the key word here is "quality". How can you spot a quality jasmine?

You should be looking at two things:

• The flower scent should be durable and pleasant, not over-powering. It should be natural and not artificially spiked.

• The green tea leaves should be made from young tea buds. These high grade leaves contain the highest concentration of nutrition.

Unfortunately, the jasmine scent is often used to improve the flavor of poor quality tea. For further information on how to get a quality tea, read

Green Tea Diet - How To Be A Successful Loser

Jasmine tea may help you lose fat by helping your body absorb less fat and cholesterol.

A 1999 study conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong fed hamsters a diet that included large amounts of lard and cholesterol.

Some hamsters were given tap water to drink, some were given jasmine tea extract, and some were given green tea antioxidants isolated from jasmine green tea.

At the end of the experiment, hamsters ingesting green tea were excreting more fatty acids and cholesterol in their droppings and had lower levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in their blood.

The researchers concluded that jasmine green tea antioxidants reduced the amount of dietary fat and cholesterol absorbed by the body.

One of the great things about drinking jasmine tea is that you get the benefit of both the green tea and jasmine.

Now, the anti-cancer benefits of green tea are well documented:

Green Tea Cancer Benefit - Unproven And Yet Valuable?

But did you know that the invaluable jasmine tea benefits can also be found in the scent itself, which has anti-cancer properties?

A 2005 study published in the Fundamentals of Clinical Pharmacology exposed rats to an agent called DMBA, which is a carcinogen that causes breast cancer.

Then, they were given jasmine.

The study concluded that "jasmine has potent chemopreventive efficacy in experimental mammary carcinogenesis and further studies are warranted to isolate and characterize the bio active principle from jasmine."

Another evidence of its anti-cancer properties comes from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

There, Professor Eliezer Flescher has synthesized an anti-cancer drug from methyl jasmonate, one of the key chemical constituents of jasmine. The drug is in the preliminary testing stages at the moment, but is showing a lot of promise.

A study published in the November 2008 edition of Cancer Investigations found that methyl jasmonate and cis-jasmone, a related compound, were both effective against prostate cancer cells.

Finally, a 1990 study by the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine found that out of five different types of tea, jasmine tea was best able to prevent cancer of the esophagus in rats exposed to N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine.

However, all types of tea that were used showed some effect, with only 42 to 67% of the tea-drinking mice getting tumors after exposure versus 90% of the control group.

Nerves on edge? Try drinking some jasmine tea!

In aromatherapy, jasmine essential oil is believed have a tranquilizing effect. Now, scientific research has confirmed that the smell of jasmine does indeed act as a mild sedative.

A 2005 study conducted by Kyoto University found that the smell of jasmine reduced study participants' heart rates and produced "calm and vigorous mood states."

After further experimentation, the researchers attributed this effect to one of the aromatic components of jasmine: (R)-(-)-linalool.

So, the next time you're stressed out or you've had a bad day, try sipping a cup of jasmine tea to relieve the tension!

Zhang A, Zhu Qy, et al (1997). Inhibitory effects of jasmine green tea epicatechin isomers on free radical-induced lysis of red blood cells. Life Sci. 1997;61(4):383-94.

Chan, PT, Fong, WP, et al (1999). Jasmine green tea epicatechins are hypolipidemic in hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) fed a high fat diet. J Nutr. 1999 Jun;129(6):1094-101.

Chemopreventive efficacy and anti-lipid peroxidative potential of Jasminum grandiflorum Linn. - jasmine - on 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene-induced rat mammary carcinogenesis. Fundam Clin Pharmacol. 2005 Dec; 19(6):687-93.  

Han C and Xu Y (1989). The effect of Chinese teas on the occurrence of oesophageal tumor caused by N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine in rats. Zhonghua Yu Fang Yi Xue Za Zhi. 1989 Mar; 23(2):67-70.

Yeruva, L (2008). Delayed cytotoxic effects of methyl jasmonate and cis-jasmone induced apoptosis in prostate cancer cells. Cancer Investigations, November 2008.

American Friends of Tel-Aviv University (2008). Anti-cancer Flower Power. August 25, 2008. Accessed online March5,2008.http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7599

Kuroda K, Inoue N, et al (2005). Sedative effects of the jasmine tea odor and (R)-(-)-linalool, one of its major odor components, on autonomic nerve activity and mood states. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2005 Oct;95(2-3):107-14.

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