Arabian Jasmine (Jasminum sambac)

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Names, Identification, and the Plants Mistaken for Jasmine
3. How Jasmine Tea Is Actually Made
4. Jasmine Rice Contains No Jasmine
5. Traditional Use
6. Active Compounds
7. Aroma, Mood, and Autonomic Arousal
8. What Belongs to the Tea, Not the Flower
9. Traditional Use for Suppressing Lactation
10. Topical and Antimicrobial Claims
11. Culinary Use
12. Forms and Preparations
13. Dosage
14. Cautions and Contraindications
15. Key Research Papers
16. Connections
17. Featured Videos

Overview

Jasminum sambac is a scrambling evergreen shrub or weak vine in the olive family, Oleaceae — the same family as olive, ash, lilac, forsythia and privet. It has glossy opposite leaves and waxy, strongly scented white flowers. The flowers open in the evening: a 2017 study of its scent chemistry describes it as an evening-blooming flower whose linalool emission peaks after the petals open (Bera and colleagues). That habit governs almost everything about how the plant is used: pickers take the buds in the late afternoon while they are still closed, and the flowers do their scenting work in the dark hours afterwards.

The species is thought to have originated in the eastern Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, and it has been carried by trade and cultivation across South Asia, Southeast Asia, southern China and the Pacific. A 2026 review of the species describes it as growing mainly in tropical and warm-temperate regions. Several distinct cultivar forms exist — the single-flowered "Maid of Orleans", the semi-double "Belle of India" with elongated petals, and the fully double "Grand Duke of Tuscany", which looks more like a small gardenia.

The part mainly used is the flower, almost always fresh or freshly dried. Leaves appear in some folk preparations (see Traditional Use), but unlike many medicinal herbs the plant is not a bark or root drug. In practice, J. sambac reaches people in four forms: as a garland or offering flower, as the scenting agent in jasmine tea, as a solvent-extracted absolute for perfumery, and as a fresh flower applied to the body in a few folk practices.

Commercially, the flower is a serious agricultural crop. Southern China grows it for tea scenting, with Guangxi and Fujian the best-known centres. Tamil Nadu in southern India supports a large fresh-flower garland industry, and the Philippines grows sampaguita largely for garlands sold at churches, shrines and traffic intersections.

Names, Identification, and the Plants Mistaken for Jasmine

The binomial is Jasminum sambac (L.) Aiton, family Oleaceae. Local names include:

• Tagalog / Filipino: sampaguita — declared the national flower of the Philippines in 1934.
• Indonesian / Malay: melati or melati putih — designated Indonesia's puspa bangsa, the flower of the nation, and central to Javanese and Sundanese wedding dress.
• Vietnamese: hoa nhài in the north, hoa lài in the south.
• Thai: มะลิ (mali) — associated with Thai Mother's Day.
• Chinese: 茉莉花 (mòlìhuā), the flower of the folk song and of 茉莉花茶, jasmine tea.
• Hindi / Marathi / Gujarati: mogra, motia, bela.

Now the confusions, in order of how much they matter.

1. Tea jasmine vs. perfume jasmine. J. sambac is the species used to scent tea and to make garlands. Jasminum grandiflorum — Spanish jasmine or royal jasmine, sometimes treated as J. officinale f. grandiflorum — is the species grown at scale in Grasse, Egypt and Tamil Nadu for jasmine absolute, the perfumery material. The two smell recognisably different: grandiflorum is the richer, more indolic, "classic" jasmine of French perfumery, while sambac is greener, sweeter and more citrus-tinged. A sambac absolute does exist and is sold, but when a perfumer says "jasmine absolute" without qualification they usually mean grandiflorum. A third species, common or poet's jasmine, Jasminum officinale, is grown mostly as a garden climber. The species differ chemically: a 2026 comparison of the concretes, absolutes and flower headspace of four Jasminum species grown in Egypt (J. sambac, J. grandiflorum, J. azoricum and J. multiflorum) identified 157 volatile components and found that species and season both shaped the profile (Yassen and colleagues). A product labelled only "jasmine" does not say which species it contains.

2. Plants called jasmine that are not Jasminum at all. This is where the risk lives:

• Yellow jasmine / Carolina jasmine — Gelsemium sempervirens (Gelsemiaceae). The genus is rich in monoterpene indole alkaloids, gelsemine among them, and a 2023 review describes Gelsemium as a highly toxic genus (Peng and colleagues). A 1979 case report in the Journal of Pediatrics described poisoning with Carolina jessamine (Blaw and colleagues), and a 2002 veterinary report described three goats and a goose dying after eating its leaves (Thompson and colleagues). Its Asian relative, G. elegans, has caused fatal human poisoning (Qu and colleagues, 2021). Not a jasmine.
• Night-blooming jasmine / night jessamine — Cestrum nocturnum (Solanaceae, the nightshade family). Strongly scented at night and widely planted. Alkaloids have been isolated from it (Halim and colleagues, 1971), and other members of its genus poison grazing cattle: C. parqui through liver necrosis (McLennan and Kelly, 1984) and C. diurnum through tissue calcification (Durand and colleagues, 1999). Not a jasmine.
• Star jasmine / confederate jasmine — Trachelospermum jasminoides (Apocynaceae, the dogbane family). A common ornamental vine. Not a jasmine.
• Crape jasmine / pinwheel flower — Tabernaemontana divaricata (Apocynaceae). A garden and traditional medicinal plant in its own right; a 2008 review lists 66 alkaloids isolated from it (Pratchayasakul and colleagues). Not a jasmine.
• Madagascar jasmine — Stephanotis floribunda (Apocynaceae). Ornamental. Not a jasmine.

The common English name therefore does not identify the plant; only the botanical name, Jasminum, marks a true jasmine. Both Jasminum and Cestrum include white, night-scented flowers grown in Southeast Asian gardens.

How Jasmine Tea Is Actually Made

This is the most interesting thing about the plant, and it is routinely described wrongly.

Jasmine tea is scented, not blended. The finished tea usually contains no jasmine flowers at all — or a token few added back for appearance. What happens is this:

1. A base tea is made first, usually a green tea, and dried thoroughly. Dry tea leaf is intensely hygroscopic and readily absorbs volatile aromatics — the same property that makes tea go stale next to spices in a cupboard is the property being exploited here.
2. Jasmine buds are picked in the afternoon, while still closed, and held until evening.
3. In the evening, as the buds begin to open and release their volatiles, the flowers and the dry tea are layered together in alternating beds, or mixed and piled. The pile is turned during the night to control the heat the flowers generate as they respire.
4. In the morning the spent flowers are sieved out and discarded. The tea, now damp from the flowers' moisture, is gently re-dried.
5. The cycle can be repeated with fresh batches of flowers, and each round requires another re-drying.

The result is a green tea carrying jasmine's volatile fingerprint. A 2026 analysis of tea before and after scenting (Yang and colleagues) found that aroma and taste scores rose, amino acids and soluble sugars increased, and tea polyphenols and catechins decreased; floral compounds including cis-3-hexenyl benzoate and methyl anthranilate moved from the flowers into the tea. Styles include the loose mo li hua cha, the tightly hand-rolled dragon pearls, and the tied "blooming" flowers.

Why this matters medically: the health literature on jasmine tea is overwhelmingly a literature about green tea. Catechins, caffeine, L-theanine, the cardiovascular and metabolic epidemiology — all of that belongs to Camellia sinensis. The jasmine contributes aroma compounds. Anyone claiming that jasmine tea's benefits are jasmine's benefits has confused the scent for the substance.

Jasmine Rice Contains No Jasmine

Thai hom mali rice — "jasmine rice" in English — has no botanical relationship to jasmine and contains none of it. The Thai name pairs "fragrant" with mali, the jasmine flower, and is commonly explained by the grain's white colour and its fragrance. The aroma itself comes from 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP), a compound produced by the rice plant: in a study of Thai jasmine rice (Khao Dawk Mali 105), 2AP was the most abundant aroma compound in cooked rice and had the highest odour activity in raw and cooked rice (Jinakot and Jirapakkul, 2019). 2AP has been considered the most important aroma compound in rice since it was first characterised in 1983, it also occurs in Basmati-type rice (Daygon and colleagues, 2017), and it gives pandan leaf its typical aroma (Azhar and colleagues, 2022).

This is worth stating plainly because "jasmine rice contains jasmine" appears in a great deal of wellness writing, sometimes attached to claims that eating jasmine rice delivers jasmine's calming effects. It does not, because there is no jasmine in it.

Traditional Use

Traditional use is history and cultural practice. It is not evidence of efficacy, and for this plant almost none of it has been tested.

Ayurveda and Siddha. J. sambac and its relatives appear in Indian medicine under names such as jati, mallika and navamallika. Traditional applications include chewing the leaves or applying flower preparations for mouth ulcers and gum complaints, flower or leaf infusions for sore eyes, and the well-documented practice of binding fresh flowers over the breasts to stop milk production. Jasmine oil — usually meaning an infused or macerated oil rather than a distillate — is used in abhyanga massage as a cooling, calming preparation.

Traditional Chinese medicine. 茉莉花 is a comparatively minor and late entrant to the Chinese materia medica, used as a light, aromatic, qi-moving flower to relieve a stuffy or oppressed feeling in the chest, calm irritability, and settle the stomach. It is characteristically drunk rather than decocted at drug strength.

Southeast Asia. In Indonesian jamu, melati appears in cooling and postpartum preparations and in bathing waters. In Thai and Vietnamese folk practice the flower is chiefly a fragrance and a cooling drink, and mali water — flowers steeped overnight in water — is a traditional base for Thai desserts and offerings. In the Philippines, sampaguita is culturally enormous and medicinally almost absent; folk uses are limited and localised.

Across all of these traditions the flower is used gently. It is not a purgative, not a strong hypotensive, not an anti-infective given at drug doses. A 2026 review of the species lists traditional uses for insomnia, headaches, dental caries, bruises, diarrhoea and abdominal pain, dizziness and difficult labour, and notes that its pharmacology has so far been studied only in preliminary cell experiments and simple animal experiments (Wang and colleagues).

Active Compounds

The chemistry that has been characterised in detail is the volatile chemistry — the scent — because that is what the tea and perfume industries pay to analyse. The flower's headspace and its solvent extracts contain, among others:

• Benzyl acetate — sweet, fruity, floral; one of the three major benzenoid esters of the flower's scent, with methyl benzoate and methyl salicylate (Bera and colleagues, 2017). A headspace study found its proportion fell from morning to afternoon and rose again in evening collections (Pragadheesh and colleagues, 2011).
• Linalool — a monoterpene alcohol shared with lavender, coriander seed and bergamot, and one of the three major terpenes of the scent, with (E)-β-ocimene and α-farnesene (Bera and colleagues). Linalool is the compound most often invoked when jasmine aroma is credited with calming effects, and it has been studied in its own right far more than jasmine has.
• Indole — detected in the headspace of plucked flowers (Pragadheesh and colleagues). Indole smells faecal and animalic in isolation and floral at trace dilution. It is also formed by gut bacteria from tryptophan, which is unrelated to its role here.
• Methyl anthranilate — grape-like, slightly medicinal, and one of the floral compounds that moves into the tea during scenting (Yang and colleagues, 2026). Best known outside perfumery as a bird repellent and a grape-flavour compound.
• cis-Jasmone and methyl jasmonate — the jasmonates, named after jasmine, which in plants act as signalling hormones in wound and defence responses. Methyl jasmonate has been studied heavily in cancer cell lines; that work is about the isolated molecule at experimental concentrations and says nothing about drinking jasmine tea.
• (Z)-3-hexenyl benzoate, benzyl alcohol, benzyl benzoate, α-farnesene, eugenol, linalool oxides — the supporting cast that gives the flower its green, balsamic and spicy edges.

The non-volatile fraction is less studied. A 2026 review counts more than 200 phytochemicals isolated from the species, most of them terpenes, aromatic compounds and organic acids (Wang and colleagues). As an Oleaceae member, J. sambac contains secoiridoid glycosides: sambacoside A, molihuasides and, in 2025, five newly described oligomeric secoiridoid glycosides (jasminumosides A–E) have been isolated from the flowers, and in mice three of these compounds protected against chemically induced liver injury at oral doses of 12.5–25 mg/kg (Inoue and colleagues, 2025). These are the compounds that would matter for any swallowed preparation, and they have been studied least in people — not at all, so far. No standardised extract of J. sambac defined by a marker compound is in general use.

Aroma, Mood, and Autonomic Arousal

Mechanism. Inhaled volatiles reach olfactory receptors, and olfactory input has an unusually direct route to the amygdala and limbic structures — a shorter path than the other senses take. Odours can therefore shift emotional state and autonomic tone (heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, breathing rate) quickly and measurably. In mice, an hour in air saturated with 1% or 3% linalool produced sedation without significant loss of motor coordination (Linck and colleagues, 2009), which points to effects beyond smell alone in animals. In a human study the two routes are difficult to separate.

What the human studies show. The relevant work is a small set of laboratory experiments with 8 to 40 participants and short exposures, and they are hard to blind: a floral odour cannot be concealed from the person smelling it.

• In a 2010 study of 40 healthy volunteers, Hongratanaworakit applied J. sambac oil to the skin of the abdomen in an aromatherapy massage. Compared with placebo, it significantly increased breathing rate, blood oxygen saturation and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and participants rated themselves more alert, more vigorous and less relaxed — an arousing profile rather than a sedating one. Jasmine is often described as relaxing; this study found the opposite.
• In a 2005 study of 24 healthy volunteers (Kuroda and colleagues, Kyoto), jasmine tea odour was presented at the lowest concentration each person could detect and inhaled for 5 minutes. Compared with control, it lowered heart rate and raised the high-frequency component of heart-rate variability, a marker of parasympathetic activity, as did lavender odour of similar perceived intensity; mood tests (POMS) showed calm and vigorous states. (R)-(−)-linalool at the concentration found in the tea reproduced these effects, while (S)-(+)-linalool did not.
• An earlier study from the same group (Inoue and colleagues, 2003) tested 8 volunteers who either liked or disliked the smell. Low-intensity jasmine tea odour increased parasympathetic activity in both groups; a 20-fold stronger odour increased parasympathetic activity in those who liked it but sympathetic activity in those who disliked it. The odour of the plain Chinese green tea used as the base produced no similar effect.

Reading the studies together. The direction of effect is not consistent across studies, and the stimuli were not the same thing: an oil applied in a massage and a faint tea aroma at the threshold of detection are different exposures, and the 2003 study found that odour strength and whether a person liked the smell changed the direction of the response. The effects were measured over minutes, in single sessions. There is no trial showing that jasmine aroma treats anxiety disorder, insomnia or depression as clinical conditions. What the literature supports is short-term shifts in mood and autonomic arousal while smelling the scent.

What Belongs to the Tea, Not the Flower

Search for "jasmine tea benefits" and you will get an account of catechin polyphenols, cardiovascular risk, weight management, oral health, alertness without jitter, and cancer epidemiology. Every one of those threads is green tea research. It concerns Camellia sinensis — its catechins, above all EGCG, plus caffeine and L-theanine. None of it was generated by studying jasmine flowers, and none of it transfers to jasmine.

Keeping the two apart leads to two points:

• Jasmine tea on a green-tea base carries the green tea's own compounds, though scenting changes them: in the 2026 scenting analysis, tea polyphenols and catechins decreased after scenting while amino acids and soluble sugars increased (Yang and colleagues). Its caffeine is that of the underlying tea, which varies with the leaf and the brewing, as described on the Green Tea page.
• A caffeine-free "jasmine flower tea" made only of dried jasmine blossoms with no tea leaf is a floral infusion with no human trial evidence behind it, and none of the green-tea research applies to it.

Traditional Use for Suppressing Lactation

This is the one internal-medicine claim for J. sambac with any clinical literature behind it, and it deserves accurate reporting because it is old, small, and concerns an effect most readers would not expect.

The practice. In southern India, fresh jasmine flowers are bound over both breasts, held in place with a cloth or brassiere, and renewed periodically, to stop milk production in a woman who is not breastfeeding — after a stillbirth, a neonatal death, a decision not to nurse, or at weaning.

The evidence. The principal clinical report is a 1988 comparative study from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore (Shrivastav and colleagues, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology), which compared jasmine flowers applied to the breasts with the dopamine agonist bromocriptine for suppressing puerperal lactation. Its abstract does not state the number of women or how they were allocated to the two regimens. Both regimens significantly reduced serum prolactin, and the decrease was significantly greater with bromocriptine. On breast engorgement, milk production and analgesic use the two were equally effective, their failure rates were similar, and rebound lactation occurred in a small proportion of the women given bromocriptine. The authors described jasmine flowers as an effective, inexpensive alternative where cost and availability restrict the use of bromocriptine.

A later trial from the same college took a different route. In a randomised, double-blind crossover trial (Finny and colleagues, 2015, Tropical Doctor), an aqueous-ethanol jasmine flower extract was given as nasal drops to 35 women whose antipsychotic medication had raised their prolactin. Ten of the 35 had a fall in serum prolactin of 25 ng/mL or more while on the extract; those who did not respond were on higher antipsychotic doses, and the main side effect was a transient, mild burning sensation in the nose. The breast application itself has not been retested in a later randomised trial indexed in PubMed.

What this amounts to. The practice has been formally studied, and the 1988 comparison reported a lactation-suppressing effect. One regional comparison with an unreported sample size does not establish it as a therapy, and the mechanism is not established: the 2015 authors concluded that the extract contains a prolactin-lowering substance that needs further characterisation.

Relevance for nursing mothers. Because the reported effect is suppression of milk production, this research raises a concern about binding jasmine flowers or flower poultices to the breasts for women who intend to keep breastfeeding.

Topical and Antimicrobial Claims

Mechanism. Jasmine's volatile constituents — benzyl acetate, linalool, eugenol and the rest — do inhibit bacteria and fungi in a dish. That is unremarkable: most aromatic plant volatiles do, because they are membrane-disrupting lipophilic molecules and that is largely what they evolved to be.

Evidence. Published work on J. sambac antimicrobial activity is cell-culture and agar-plate work — extracts and essential oils tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and similar organisms in the laboratory; the 2026 review of the species notes that its pharmacology has been studied only in preliminary cell experiments and simple animal experiments (Wang and colleagues). There are also animal-model and in-vitro reports of wound-healing and anti-inflammatory activity for leaf and flower extracts. Taken together this is hypothesis, not efficacy. There are no controlled human trials of jasmine preparations for wound healing, skin infection, oral ulceration or eye infection.

On the mouth-ulcer and eye traditions: common mouth ulcers usually heal on their own, which makes any uncontrolled remedy look effective, and no controlled study has tested jasmine preparations for either use.

Culinary Use

Jasmine is a genuine culinary ingredient across Asia, though almost always as aroma rather than as bulk.

• Jasmine tea — the dominant food use worldwide, and the one described above.
• Thai nam loi mali — jasmine-scented water, made by floating fresh flowers on cooled boiled water overnight in a covered vessel and then removing them. It is the traditional liquid for Thai desserts such as khanom chan and for the syrup in lot chong, and the same overnight-scenting logic as the tea.
• Filipino and Indonesian sweets and drinks — jasmine appears in gulaman and in scented syrups and rice preparations, again as an infusion.
• Fresh flowers as garnish — edible in the small quantities used, and used decoratively on desserts and rice dishes.

What jasmine is not used for is cooking in quantity. Both the tea and the flower water rely on slow transfer of scent without boiling.

Forms and Preparations

• Jasmine tea (scented green tea). The mainstream form, prepared as green tea is.
• Dried jasmine flower infusion. Flowers only, no tea leaf; caffeine-free.
• Fresh flower water. Flowers steeped in cool water overnight, then removed. Culinary, not medicinal.
• Jasmine absolute. Solvent-extracted (hexane to a "concrete", then ethanol to an "absolute"); historically by enfleurage into fat. Jasmine is not normally steam-distilled. Products sold as "jasmine oil" range from absolutes to dilutions of an absolute in a carrier oil to synthetic fragrance, and labels do not always say which. An absolute retains traces of extraction solvent and is a perfumery material, not an oral one.
• Infused or macerated jasmine oil. Flowers steeped in a carrier oil; far weaker than an absolute.
• Jasmine hydrosol / flower water. Cosmetic use.

There is no standardised J. sambac extract with an agreed marker compound and no capsule product with a meaningful evidence base behind it.

Dosage

No therapeutic dose of jasmine has been established for any condition. That is the honest answer, and it follows directly from the absence of dose-ranging human trials.

What can be said:

• As a beverage: jasmine tea is drunk in ordinary tea quantities, and the limiting factor identified in the research is the caffeine of the underlying tea. In its 2015 opinion on caffeine, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that habitual intakes up to 400 mg a day do not give rise to safety concerns for non-pregnant adults, that single doses up to 200 mg do not, and that habitual intakes up to 200 mg a day by pregnant women do not give rise to safety concerns for the fetus.
• As an aromatherapy inhalation: the human studies used brief exposures — 5 minutes of tea odour at the threshold of detection (Kuroda and colleagues, 2005) and a single massage application of the oil (Hongratanaworakit, 2010).
• Topically: no dilution of jasmine absolute has been tested in trials for any purpose. Jasmine absolute is a recognised contact sensitiser (see Cautions).
• Internally, as an oil or absolute: no oral dose has been studied. Concentrated aromatic extracts are not foods, and jasmine absolute in particular is a solvent-extracted perfumery material.

Cautions and Contraindications

Identify the plant first. This is the leading safety point for anything called jasmine. Gelsemium sempervirens ("yellow jasmine", "Carolina jasmine") belongs to a highly toxic genus and has poisoned children and livestock; Cestrum nocturnum ("night-blooming jasmine") is a nightshade whose genus includes plants that poison cattle; Trachelospermum and Tabernaemontana ("star jasmine", "crape jasmine") are unrelated Apocynaceae. Only Jasminum species are the plant this page describes, and the English word "jasmine" alone does not say which of these plants is meant.

The flower itself. J. sambac is consumed widely as jasmine tea and handled daily as a garland flower. The safety concerns in the literature centre on the look-alike plants, the concentrated oils and absolutes, fragrance allergy and the caffeine of the tea base, rather than on the flower as a food.

Specific concerns in the research:

• Breastfeeding. Because topical flowers have been used, and clinically studied, to suppress lactation, the research raises a concern about applying jasmine flowers or flower poultices to the breasts for women who intend to keep nursing. Drinking jasmine tea was not part of those studies; for its caffeine, EFSA concluded that single doses and habitual intakes up to 200 mg a day by lactating women do not give rise to safety concerns for breastfed infants.
• Pregnancy. Jasmine tea as a beverage carries the caffeine of its tea base (EFSA's pregnancy figure is given under Dosage). Concentrated absolutes and essential oils have not been evaluated in pregnancy.
• Fragrance allergy and contact dermatitis. Jasmine absolute is a recognised contact sensitiser: in patch-test data from the German-speaking IVDK dermatology network for 2000–2008, it was among the essential oils most often positive, at 1.6% (weighted mean) of patients tested, and cross-reactivity between an oil and its main allergen was marked (Uter and colleagues, 2010). Benzyl benzoate, benzyl alcohol and eugenol, reported among jasmine's constituents, are individually labelled allergens under EU cosmetics rules.
• Asthma and scent sensitivity. Strong floral scents can trouble some people with asthma or scent sensitivity.
• Children and pets. Accidental ingestion of essential oils by young children is a documented cause of poisoning: a Toronto poison-centre review recorded 251 children who had ingested an essential oil or product, two of whom had seizures, and its literature search found one child death (Flaman and colleagues, 2001; camphor and eucalyptus oils). The toxic look-alikes above are also common garden plants.
• Drug interactions. No clinically documented drug interactions are established for jasmine flower or jasmine tea. Any interaction attributed to jasmine tea belongs to the green tea in it: tea polyphenols inhibit the absorption of non-heme iron, and for green tea extract supplements, EFSA (2018) found that intervention trials of 800 mg or more of EGCG a day produced a statistically significant rise in serum transaminases and could not identify a supplement intake of green tea catechins that does not give rise to concern, while concluding that catechins from traditionally brewed green tea are in general considered safe at the intakes reported in Europe. Neither is a jasmine effect.
• Swallowing the absolute or the essential oil. This is the realistic route to harm from a plant whose flower is otherwise widely used as food; no oral safety data exist for these concentrates.

Key Research Papers

1. Shrivastav P, George K, Balasubramaniam N, et al. (1988). Suppression of puerperal lactation using jasmine flowers (Jasminum sambac). Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 28(1):68-71 — PubMed PMID: 3214386
2. Hongratanaworakit T (2010). Stimulating effect of aromatherapy massage with jasmine oil. Natural Product Communications 5(1):157-62 — PubMed PMID: 20184043
3. Kuroda K, Inoue N, Ito Y, 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. European Journal of Applied Physiology 95(2-3):107-14 — PubMed PMID: 15976995
4. Wang H, Li K, Li D, et al. (2026). Jasminum sambac: Progress in research on ethnopharmacology, phytochemistry, pharmacological actions and other applications. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 354:120478 — PubMed PMID: 40882791
5. Pragadheesh VS, Yadav A, Chanotiya CS, et al. (2011). Monitoring the emission of volatile organic compounds from flowers of Jasminum sambac using solid-phase micro-extraction fibers and gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection. Natural Product Communications 6(9):1333-8 — PubMed PMID: 21941909
6. Yang Y, Dong Y, Song Z, et al. (2026). Aroma characteristics and volatile compound transfer in jasmine tea during scenting. Foods 15(8):1403 — PubMed PMID: 42073291
7. Inoue N, Kuroda K, Sugimoto A, et al. (2003). Autonomic nervous responses according to preference for the odor of jasmine tea. Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry 67(6):1206-14 — PubMed PMID: 12843644
8. Finny P, Stephen C, Jacob R, et al. (2015). Jasmine flower extract lowers prolactin. Tropical Doctor 45(2):118-22 — PubMed PMID: 25505191
9. Bera P, Mukherjee C, Mitra A (2017). Enzymatic production and emission of floral scent volatiles in Jasminum sambac. Plant Science 256:25-38 — PubMed PMID: 28167035
10. Yassen MS, Ayoub IM, El-Ahmady SH, et al. (2026). Comparative analysis of flower volatiles from four Jasminum species growing in Egypt using multivariate analysis. Scientific Reports 16:8947 — PubMed PMID: 41813734
11. Inoue N, Sakamoto Y, Manse Y, et al. (2025). Oligomeric secoiridoid glycosides with hepatoprotective activity from the flowers of Jasminum sambac (L.) Aiton. Phytochemistry 237:114538 — PubMed PMID: 40345309
12. Linck VM, da Silva AL, Figueiró M, et al. (2009). Inhaled linalool-induced sedation in mice. Phytomedicine 16(4):303-7 — PubMed PMID: 18824339
13. Peng YL, Liang JJ, Xue Y, et al. (2023). Genus Gelsemium and its endophytic fungi: comprehensive review of their traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology. Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry 23(26):2452-87 — PubMed PMID: 37642181
14. Blaw ME, Adkisson MA, Levin D, et al. (1979). Poisoning with Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens [L.] Ait.). Journal of Pediatrics 94(6):998-1001 — PubMed PMID: 571907
15. Thompson LJ, Frazier K, Stiver S, et al. (2002). Multiple animal intoxications associated with Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) ingestions. Veterinary and Human Toxicology 44(5):272-3 — PubMed PMID: 12361108
16. Qu D, Qiao DF, Chen XC, et al. (2021). Fatal poisoning by accidental ingestion of the "heartbreak grass" (Gelsemium elegans) verified by toxicological and medico-legal analyses. Forensic Science International 321:110745 — PubMed PMID: 33676237
17. Halim AF, Collins RP, Berigari MS (1971). Alkaloids produced by Cestrum nocturnum and Cestrum diurnum. Planta Medica 20(1):44-53 — PubMed PMID: 5154603
18. McLennan MW, Kelly WR (1984). Cestrum parqui (green cestrum) poisoning in cattle. Australian Veterinary Journal 61(9):289-91 — PubMed PMID: 6517779
19. Durand R, Figueredo JM, Mendoza E (1999). Intoxication in cattle from Cestrum diurnum. Veterinary and Human Toxicology 41(1):26-7 — PubMed PMID: 9949481
20. Pratchayasakul W, Pongchaidecha A, Chattipakorn N, et al. (2008). Ethnobotany & ethnopharmacology of Tabernaemontana divaricata. Indian Journal of Medical Research 127(4):317-35 — PubMed PMID: 18577786
21. Jinakot I, Jirapakkul W (2019). Volatile aroma compounds in jasmine rice as affected by degrees of milling. Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology 65(Suppl):S231-S234 — PubMed PMID: 31619638
22. Daygon VD, Calingacion M, Forster LC, et al. (2017). Metabolomics and genomics combine to unravel the pathway for the presence of fragrance in rice. Scientific Reports 7:8767 — PubMed PMID: 28821745
23. Azhar ANH, Amran NA, Yusup S, et al. (2022). Ultrasonic extraction of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP) from Pandanus amaryllifolius Roxb. using ethanol as solvent. Molecules 27(15):4906 — PubMed PMID: 35956856
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PubMed Topic Searches

1. PubMed: Jasminum sambac and lactation suppression
2. PubMed: Hongratanaworakit, jasmine oil
3. PubMed: Jasmine tea odour, autonomic nerve activity and linalool
4. PubMed: Jasminum sambac phytochemistry reviews
5. PubMed: Jasminum sambac flower volatiles
6. PubMed: Jasmine tea scenting and volatile transfer
7. PubMed: Jasminum sambac — all literature
8. PubMed: Jasminum grandiflorum (the perfumery species)
9. PubMed: Jasmine aromatherapy, mood and anxiety
10. PubMed: Linalool — inhalation and anxiolytic effects
11. PubMed: Jasmine tea and green tea catechins
12. PubMed: Jasminum sambac antimicrobial activity
13. PubMed: Gelsemium sempervirens ("yellow jasmine") poisoning
14. PubMed: Cestrum nocturnum ("night-blooming jasmine") toxicity
15. PubMed: Jasmine absolute and fragrance contact dermatitis
16. PubMed: 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline — the aroma of "jasmine" rice

Connections

• All Herbs
• Chrysanthemum — the other great Asian flower tea, and the closest parallel: an infusion valued as a cooling drink with a similarly thin trial literature.
• Lavender — the aromatic flower whose calming claims do have human trial support, and the natural comparison for anyone interested in jasmine's mood effects. Both are rich in linalool.
• EGCG — the green-tea catechin that carries essentially all of the health evidence attributed to "jasmine tea".

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