Herbs and blends

Osmanthus (Gui Hua)

Flower infusion · Guilin, Guangxi · dried blossoms, not tea leaf

The tiny golden dried blossoms of sweet osmanthus, known as gui hua. The aroma is ripe apricot and peach with a creamy, honeyed sweetness; the infusion is clean and soft, trailing off into a faint dried-apricot note. Drink it on its own, or stir a pinch into an oolong or shu pu-erh, where it sits comfortably without burying the tea itself. It comes from Guilin in Guangxi, a city so planted with osmanthus that its name literally means “osmanthus forest”.