One of the most exquisite flowers, the Osmanthus flower, can be used to make an aromatic and delicious tea - Osmanthus Tea. This beautiful tea has a sweet, creamy, peachy, and floral aroma and flavor. With its wide range of flavor notes, it is probably one of the most exquisite teas available on this planet. The summer season is the best time to try experimenting with this tea. Without further ado, let us understand and learn a bit more about this sweet-smelling tea.
What is Osmanthus Tea?
The Osmanthus or osmanthus fragrant flower is native to China and Japan, and it is of the same biological family as olives. It is often known as tea olive osmanthus because of its scientific similarity to olives. These osmanthus tea olive flowers are extremely sweet and are often used for Chinese flower tea, scenting real teas, or making jams, liqueurs, cakes, and other food. It is a very popular element for cosmetics too.
The yellow osmanthus flowers are small and fragrant and produce a pale yellow fragrant liquor. It is a unique taste that simply cannot be put to words. It has a wide range of notes - from honey to creamy, peachy, and even a bit spicy. Overall, it has a very captivating taste. Tea made from this flower is the famous osmanthus tea. The dried flowers of osmanthus plants can be used in different ways, and one of them happens to be brewing a perfect cup of pale yellow osmanthus tea.
What is Osmanthus Tea Good For?
Like other teas and herbal and organic beverages, osmanthus tea too overflows with health benefits. Tea made from these fragrant flowers have unique properties and is well known throughout the world. Let us look into some of the well known osmanthus tea benefits.
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Rich in Antioxidants and Nutrients
Osmanthus tea has a pleasing and calming taste, and is packed with some rare antioxidants too, which are unique only to the osmanthus flower. The tea contains catechins and flavonoids, which is very healthy for the body.
It relieves the body from fatigue and prevents one from falling asleep. It contains nutrients like cobalt, manganese, selenium, molybdenum, neo-beta-carotene B, trans-alpha-carotene aids in preventing premature deaths and trans-beta-carotene. They are essential for the body and keep our body functioning and in peak condition.
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Maintains Skin and Eye Health
Traditional medicine and many modern health and skin care specialists believe that osmanthus tea is very effective in maintaining skin health. It is known to enhance skin tone and replenish skin color and give a glow to our skin. Regularly consuming osmanthus tea is also effective in improving eyesight.
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Promotes Weight Loss
Though osmanthus tea does not help burn calories or fat, it reduces your appetite and helps reduce binge eating. Nowadays, binge eating is a very common practice, especially among the youth, and can be called other names like stress-eating. Simply put, we all like to munch on some snacks whenever we are free, and that is a major cause of weight problems. Recent research has found that the aroma of Osmanthus tea decreases appetite-suppressing chemicals in the brain, to prevent you from overeating and binge eating.
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Acts as a Detoxifying Agent
Osmanthus tea acts as a natural detox agent and it expels the dangerous toxins from the kidneys and liver. Chinese traditional medicines often employ this effect of osmanthus tea. Regularly consuming this tea can help you feel energized and refreshed. Besides, it is often used to purify the blood and treat health issues of the endocrine system, liver, and kidney in the human body.
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Lowers Blood Pressure
With its negligible caffeine content, the tea helps lower the blood pressure in our body.
This tea is usually blended with oolong tea or green tea to give a boost to the health benefits it already has. Additionally, you might like to consume tea made purely out of osmanthus flower as it has an enticing taste and a lingering aroma.
Is Osmanthus Tea Caffeine-Free?
Osmanthus tea is a herbal tea, and in its pure form, osmanthus tea will be completely free from caffeine. It is a great choice for tea connoisseurs who want an aromatic wonder with no caffeine. However, the scented osmanthus tea is often blended with other tea types, like white tea, green tea, black tea, oolong tea or pu erh teas, which would contain some amounts of caffeine. The total caffeine content of your tea, however, would depend on the secondary tea type you use, and the amount of tea in the blend.
How to Consume Osmanthus Tea?
While we talk about tea, we cannot think of much other than having it the traditional way- as a beverage. Humans, with their exceptional sense of taste and an inquisitive mind, have often experimented with food items to find new and delicate cuisine items, with even the most common of ingredients.
After several trials, Osmanthus tea has been found to leave a faint yet unmistakable flavor and aroma when used in desserts. Additionally, it can also be blended with other teas. It is a common practice in Taiwan to blend osmanthus flowers with lightly oxidised oolong tea to produce the famous osmanthus oolong tea.
Osmanthus Tea Recipe
You may already be wondering ‘How do I make osmanthus tea?’, and ‘What does osmanthus tea taste like?’ It is indeed very difficult to answer the latter as it all depends on your palate preferences and likes. Furthermore, it is indeed worth trying out on your own, so that you can judge your own cup of tea. We believe there is nothing better than trying new tea varieties whenever possible.
Here, we would be discussing two of the types of preparation we love the most - Osmanthus Oolong Tea recipe and Sweet Osmanthus Green Tea recipe.
Osmanthus Oolong Tea Recipe
INGREDIENTS
- 5 grams of oolong tea
- 1 gram of dried osmanthus flowers
PROCEDURE
- Rinse the oolong tea with hot water at about 200 F
- Add hot water again
- Sprinkle osmanthus flowers on top
- Let it steep for about 5 minutes and serve the delicious tea.
Sweet Osmanthus Green Tea Recipe
This is a fairly simple recipe and takes barely 10 minutes to complete.
INGREDIENTS
- 5 grams of green tea
- 1 gram of osmanthus flower tea
PROCEDURE
- Boil water in a teapot or kettle
- Add green tea leaves to the kettle and let it rest for about 3 minutes
- Steep it into your favorite teaware
- Sprinkle some osmanthus flower on top to give a sweet smell
Your Sweet Osmanthus Green Tea is ready. Sit back, relax and enjoy!
Final Words
This tea is the most suitable if you have it with a light breakfast platter or in the evening to ease out your stress and tensions. Get hold of your pack of osmanthus tea, anywhere from the online stores. Buying teas online gives you certain advantages that you might not be getting if you get them from a supermarket or your local store! Furthermore, we promise to never let go of you, and be by your side on this in'tea'resting journey!
If you have already tried osmanthus tea, let us know how you liked it! We would love to hear if you made some recipes of your own, and made the osmanthus tea even more interesting and tasty!