Sanpin tea is fairly easy to find in Japan, but it was only on my trip to Okinawa that I became aware and enamoured of it. It tasted like Jasmine tea, but slightly different [1] and I ended up buying a packet to bring home and share with my family.
Today, as I was drinking the tea, I started to wonder – is there any difference between sanpin tea and jasmine tea?
As it turns out, there is.
According to Japanese wikipedia and a paper by researchers at Osaka University [2], sanpin tea is made by partially fermented tea and jasmine while jasmine tea is primarily made from green tea (unfermented/oxidised tea) and jasmine [3]. In other words, sanpin tea is jasmine-flavoured oolong tea.
Looks like I have to take back what I said in my previous post about not having seen Japanese oolongs before.
Other interesting facts I’ve learnt in the course of googling the difference are:
1. There’s another Okinawan tea that is sadly quite rare now called 清明茶 (shimi cha) that is like sanpin but the tea is even more fermented/oxidised [4]. So probably like a heavily oxidised jasmine oolong. I really hope I get the chance to try this one day!
2. The name sanpin is the Japanese reading of 香片 (hanyu pinyin: xiang pian), which is another word for jasmine.
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Notes
[1] Unfortunately, I’m unable to articulate the difference here because my tastebuds only seem to work when there’s something to compare so all I know is ‘somewhat different’. I should probably get some Jasmine tea but I’m technically not supposed to be buying new tea.
[2] 大槻暢子・岡本弘道・宮嶋純子「沖縄における茶文化調査の概要と今後の課題 (PDF) 」東アジア文化交渉研究 第2号、関西大学文化交渉学教育研究拠点編、2009年3月、pp.289-311
[3] The English wikipedia page for Jasmine tea does say that “Typically, jasmine tea has green tea as the tea base; however, white tea and black tea are also used.” The Japanese wikipedia page also says something similar, but uses the words “white tea and oolong” (no surprise given what sanpin is). However, the Chinese wikipedia page says that “茉莉花茶就是用含苞欲放的茉莉鲜花加入绿茶中窨制而成的 (Jasmine tea is made by adding jasmine flowers to green tea)” so I’m now thoroughly confused as to whether there is an official definition for jasmine tea. But given that it’s Chinese, I’m inclined to go with what the Chinese wikipedia says.
[4] Just a quick note to say that in Chinese, 清明茶 (qing ming cha) refers to tea harvested just before Qing Ming festival and is normally used for green teas, not oolongs.
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