I love floral teas but prior to this, I’d never had osmanthus scented tea nor did I know what it’s supposed to taste like. The dry teaball has a rather unpleasant hay smell and if you steep it with boiling water as Teavivre instructs, you end up with a bitter and astringent brew.
So the next time I made this tea, I used 170 to 180 F water and it turned out much better. The hay odor thankfully didn’t make it to the brewed tea and I was able to pick up a subtle floral flavor which really shines through though on the 2nd infusion (I got 3 infusions in total out of 1 tea ball). While enjoyable, I was expecting a more flowery tasting tea and the osmanthus flavor was too mellow for my liking.
I made this side by side today with an osmanthus green oolong and the oolong was the hands down winner. The natural floral notes in the oolong pair better with the osmanthus than the vegetal green tea.
Still, this tea was tasty iced and fun to watch bloom in a glass teapot.
Flavors: Hay, Osmanthus, Vegetal
