Osmanthus
Tiny golden flowers the size of rice grains, with a scent like dried apricot and honey — strong enough that a tablespoon or two carries a whole tin of jelly. Used for jellies and cakes, steeped as tea, stirred into sweet soups, or steeped in sugar as osmanthus honey. Add it off the heat: cooked, the scent goes.
TCM properties
Nature · warming Flavour · pungent Meridians · lung、spleen、stomach
Traditional food therapy
In food therapy osmanthus warms the lung, transforms phlegm and disperses cold; it is steeped as tea in cold weather.
Cautions: read first
- The scent is a volatile oil: keep it sealed and out of the light, and it fades within a few months of opening.
- For tea use water just off the boil, not a rolling boil.
Preparation
Rinse once and drain, do not soak; stir in off the heat.
Origin · Geo-authentic (道地) source
Guilin in Guangxi, Xianning in Hubei and Suzhou in Jiangsu are the recognised sources; Xianning is called the home of osmanthus. At Australian herbal shops and tea shops, not the supermarket; sometimes shelved with the flower teas
Availability in Australia
Herbal shops / specialists
