Jasmine Sambac
Sweet, creamy white flowers with a sunny, slightly indolic hint reminiscent of ripe fruit.
You may know it from Fresh jasmine garlands or jasmine tea
Where it comes from
Steam-distilled or solvent-extracted from Jasminum sambac flowers; also recreated with aroma chemicals.
Worth knowing
Its ripe, animal-like edge can smell stronger than the clean scent of jasmine tea.
About jasmine sambac
Jasminum sambac is native to Bhutan and India and now grows across the tropics, from the Arabian Peninsula to Southeast Asia. Two countries have made it their national flower. In the Philippines, where it is called sampaguita, that happened on 1 February 1934 under Proclamation No. 652. Indonesia knows it as melati putih and counts it among three national flowers. Perfume Shrine adds the Hawaiian name, Pikake.
The flowers open at night, so for tea they are plucked in the morning while the petals are still tightly closed. Sambac is the main flavouring of Chinese jasmine tea, and Fujian makes the best known. In the traditional method, dry tea is layered with fresh blossoms for about 20 to 24 hours, and top grades are scented as many as six or seven times. In Tamil Nadu, the sambac called Madurai malli has been cultivated around Madurai since 300 BCE, with references in Sangam literature and temple art. It received a Geographical Indication in 2012-13, the first flower in the state to get one.
The absolute contains over 100 volatiles. Suppliers name indole, benzyl acetate, methyl anthranilate and cis-3-hexenol. Methyl anthranilate smells of Concord grape and also occurs in neroli and bergamot. Indole is intensely faecal when concentrated and flowery at very low concentrations, which is why perfumers use it. Suppliers describe the absolute as sweet, green and fruity-floral, with honey and tea undertones that grow sweeter in the dry-down. Olfastory calls it creamy and slightly fruity, with a milky sweetness. It is potent, and one supplier suggests 0.2 to 1% of a fine fragrance formula.
How indolic it is depends on who you ask. Perfume Shrine says sambac is higher in indoles than grandiflorum, so perfumes built on it can seem more animalic or heady. A supplier description quoted on The Good Scents Company says one variety is much less indolic than grandiflorum. Eden Botanicals, for its part, sets sambac's fresh, natural greenness against the sweeter grandiflorum.
Accords it shows up in
How many of the fragrances listing Jasmine Sambac in our catalogue also carry each accord. We counted this ourselves.
Often paired with
The notes that appear next to Jasmine Sambac most often in our catalogue.
Well-known fragrances with Jasmine Sambac
Fragrances that list it in their notes, most-rated first.
Houses that use it most
Ranked by how many of their well-known fragrances list Jasmine Sambac.