TeaChat

I have been craving Osmanthus oolong tea lately, but I can not really find what I'm looking for from a vendor. In searching through TeaChat, I see that some people use dried osmanthus flowers to scent their tea. For those of you that do this, how do you do it? Do you mix a certain amount in with the dried tea you are going to brew and brew that way or would a better way be to mix in the flowers with a set amount of tea in a canister and store it that way? I actually have an osmanthus shrub/tree in a pot that I keep outside in the warm months and keep in the basement in the winter. It usually blooms when I put it in the basement, and I could probably get fresh blooms off of it, but not a lot. I guess I can also experiment with the fresh blooms to see what it does.

rhondabee wrote:I have been craving Osmanthus oolong tea lately, but I can not really find what I'm looking for from a vendor.

Are these not what you want?

Teaspring
http://www.teaspring.com/Gui-Hua-Oolong.asp

Dragon Tea House
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Premium-Gui-H ... 335eac13e6

Golden Teahouse
http://www.goldenteahouse.com/Premium-Osmanthus.htm

Aura Teas
http://www.aurateas.com/oolong-tea-Form ... etail.aspx

Thank you for the suggestions The Aura Tea site didn't come up in my search for some reason, but I could try that - it looks like what I would like. I did want the tea to be Taiwanese and 2 of the sites have Chinese oolong as the base. I saw Tea Spring, but it says it was harvested in 2007. However, I am curious about how to scent the tea using your own dried flowers.

rhondabee wrote: However, I am curious about how to scent the tea using your own dried flowers.

I realised that, and considered not posting, but I thought I would chip in, just in case you had missed one of them!

Hopefully, replies will continue, to help you on your D.I.Y. project, best of luck.

rhondabee wrote: However, I am curious about how to scent the tea using your own dried flowers.

Now you have made me curious too I have a number of interesting herbs that I have not yet used in cooking

From a quick search, results keep telling me that unopened flower buds are added to the tea while it oxidises. Thisa does not seem practical for you (or at least for me)

The blooms (or in my case leaves) are removed before packaging, although a few petals are sometimes included for decorative reasons.

The heat and humidity generated (by use of fresh blooms) can cause the tea to deteriorate

Use of dried blooms or leaves would solve the previous problem, but may not add sufficient fragrance to the tea

I think I would try with dried, in a canister, leave for some time, extricate the additive and see how the tea tasted.

This is a punchy little article.

http://teaguardian.com/nature_of_tea/mo ... ented.html

good idea

I keep dried osmanthus blossoms in their own canister and mix them with usually black tea leaves,'just at the time of brewing. Works great.

(edited to fix the auto-correct goof on 'osmanthus').

I feel like I'm always promoting Upton, I swear I'm not. But Upton makes a Se Chung oolong scented with osmanthus flowers, ZM44...and it's really, really good (in my opinion) and extraordinarily inexpensive.

If you like osmanthus-scented tea, you might also like Huang Jin Gui, or Golden Osmanthus, a se chung oolong varietal, grown in Anxi county. Especially the greener Huang Jin Gui is remarkably similar to osmanthus-scented tea in aroma. I had some great tea of this varietal from Life in Teacup...under "Other Varietals / Se Zhong" on their site.

Thanks for tips and suggestions, everyone. I think I'll have to put together a sampler of these teas and see which I like the best.