Matcha dominates the conversation about green tea on most cafe menus — lattes, baking, colour, ceremony. But matcha is one style within a much wider green tea category, and the leaf teas outside it answer menu needs that matcha cannot: a familiar floral pour for guests who "don't really drink tea", a name-recognised Chinese classic, a premium multi-infusion experience, and a tea with genuine cultural weight across the UAE that works just as well iced as hot.

TeaTach's leaf green tea range covers all four of these roles — Jasmine Green Tea, Longjing, Osmanthus Longjing and Moroccan Mint Green Tea. None of them compete with matcha, and none of them compete with each other — each is built for a different guest and a different moment on the menu.

Jasmine Green Tea — The Gateway Tea

Jasmine Green Tea is the world's most recognised scented tea, refined in China's Fujian and Guangxi provinces for over a thousand years. Properly made jasmine green is scented, not flavoured: fresh jasmine blossoms are layered with green tea leaves at night when the flowers open, then removed, with the process repeated multiple times. The result smells unmistakably of jasmine but tastes primarily of tea — floral on the nose, clean and sweet in the cup.

The overwhelming majority of jasmine tea sold commercially is flavoured rather than scented, and the difference is immediately apparent in the cup — flavoured jasmine is one-dimensional and fades quickly, while properly scented jasmine has layered fragrance that develops across infusions. For a menu, jasmine green tea consistently reaches guests who claim not to like tea: the floral aroma is welcoming, the natural sweetness needs no additions, and the low caffeine level makes it appropriate across the whole day. It is the lowest-resistance addition to a loose-leaf programme — it sells itself and re-steeps well.

Longjing — The Name Guests Already Know

Longjing, or Dragon Well, is one of the small handful of Chinese teas that guests may recognise by name before they taste it. What makes it taste different from most other green teas is the process: Longjing is pan-fired rather than steamed — the leaves are pressed and tossed against the hot walls of a wok, flattening them while halting oxidation. This produces a drier, toasted chestnut character alongside the leaf's natural sweetness, and a smooth, rounded finish with less of the grassy edge found in many standard green teas.

On a menu, that name recognition does real work: Longjing can be placed as a premium green tea without needing extensive explanation, because a meaningful share of guests already have a positive association with it. It is the kind of tea that lets a cafe say "we take our tea programme seriously" in a single word on the menu.

Osmanthus Longjing — The Premium Floral Upgrade

Where plain Longjing is the classic reference point, Osmanthus Longjing is the upgrade for venues that want the tea itself to be part of the experience. Osmanthus is a small golden blossom with a fragrance often described as apricot, peach and honey; layering it with Longjing leaves adds a sweet, fruity top note without masking the base tea's character. The cup opens with floral fragrance and finishes with the clean, lingering sweetness of the leaf.

Longjing — in either form — is built for re-steeping. A first infusion at around 85°C for 30–45 seconds gives the lightest, most fragrant cup, where the osmanthus is most prominent; each subsequent infusion reveals more of the leaf's vegetal depth as the floral note softens. For fine dining and premium tea service, presenting that re-steeping process as part of the experience adds a layer of theatre that justifies a higher price per pot — and having both the plain and osmanthus versions on the menu gives guests a clear "classic vs. premium" choice within the same tea family.

Moroccan Mint — Cultural Resonance and Iced Versatility

Moroccan Mint Green Tea is not a novelty item — it is the national drink of Morocco and a staple across North Africa and the Middle East. The traditional recipe pairs gunpowder green tea (leaves pan-fired then rolled under pressure into tight pellets that unfurl visibly when brewed) with spearmint, brewed strong. The gunpowder base gives it a more robust, slightly smoky character than standard loose-leaf green — structural strength that means the tea does not disappear behind the mint or any added sugar.

In the UAE, where a large share of guests have a direct cultural connection to this drink, it occupies a position no other tea in the range does: familiar and trusted to half the room, visually striking and aromatic to the other half as the pellets unfurl in a glass pot. It also works year-round — served hot in cooler months, and brewed double strength over ice in summer, where it becomes one of the most distinctive cold drinks on a cafe menu.

Brewing Leaf Green Tea Without Bitterness

The single most common mistake with green tea is water that is too hot, which pulls out bitterness and masks the floral, sweet and toasted notes that define each of these teas. Approximate guidance:

None of these require boiling water, and all four reward a glass pot — the unfurling leaves, the pale gold or golden-green liquor and the visible floral or mint elements are part of what makes leaf green tea feel like a considered choice rather than a bag dropped in hot water.

Matching the Tea to the Guest — A Positioning Matrix

The practical question for a cafe is not "which of these is best" but which guest each one is for:

Stocking all four does not mean stocking four versions of the same thing — it means a cafe can match almost any green-tea-leaning guest to something that fits, without anyone defaulting to "just a green tea bag".

Explore Jasmine Green Tea, Longjing, Osmanthus Longjing and Moroccan Mint Green Tea, or browse the full green tea range for wholesale cafe and hotel service across Dubai and the UAE.