Ingredients · Flower

Osmanthus

Osmanthus fragrans · Oleaceae (olive family)

Osmanthus
Tiny golden flowers with the scent of ripe peaches or apricots — which is the most useful thing to know about them, because it explains why osmanthus is blended with fruit and with tea rather than used as a floral note in the way rose or lavender is. Two products carry it. It is called sweet osmanthus, fragrant olive or tea olive in English, and it is a relative of the olive and the jasmine.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partFlower
KindFlower
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromChina
TasteThe scent of ripe peaches and apricots — sweet, fruity and floral at once rather than perfumey
How to brew it
  • 185°F / 85°C
  • 2 to 3 minutes, with or without tea

How to use it

Infused with green or black tea. In jellies, syrups and cakes. It is delicate — boiling water and a long steep will flatten it, and a little goes a long way.

With food

Peach and apricot. Pear. Honey. Rice cakes and mochi. Almond. Goji berry.

With spices

Ginger. Goji berry. Rock sugar. Cardamom, lightly.

With tea

Oolong above all — osmanthus oolong is a classic. Green tea. Black tea. Pu-erh.

Its story

Where it comes from

Native across Assam, Cambodia, China, the Himalayas, Hainan, Japan, Myanmar, Taiwan, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam. It is the city flower of Guilin in Guangxi. Our lot names no origin.

What happened

Osmanthus belongs to autumn and to reunion. It is closely associated with the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, when osmanthus wine is a customary drink at family gatherings, and its flowering coincides with it. In Chinese cooking the flowers are infused with green or black tea leaves to make osmanthus tea, and go into jams, cakes and liquor. Guilin, whose name means forest of sweet osmanthus, takes the flower as its own.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip