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Equusfell drank China Guangxi Gui-Hua Osmanthus Tea by Upton Tea Imports

122 tasting notes

I really hated this tea when I first tried it. It was bitter and awful, with the overwhelming flavor of burnt flower petals, like someone boiled away a generic Chinese restaurant tea until nothing but the bare kettle remained.
I realize now that I was just destroying a perfectly fine green tea with boiling hot water. Now that I have my fabulous fancy kettle, this is a decent osmanthus scented cup.
The osmathus is not terribly strong. It reminds me of a less perfume-y jasmine, much sweeter, but I still wound’t describe this tea as sweet like I would some oolongs. More like the memory of sweet, like how you can almost taste a sweet smelling flower without physically doing so. The flavor is also most prevalent on the sip. The aftertaste is slightly astringent but strongly reminiscent of steamed veggies. Like you ate stem of a steamed artichoke.
Pretty good overall, I’d like to find it at an upscale restaurant, but nothing I would buy quantity of. Now that I have the brewing temp right, I think I will enjoy the rest of this sample.

Flavors: Artichoke, Osmanthus

Preparation

180 °F / 82 °C 2 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

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I started drinking something other than Sleepytime in my first year of grad school, 2011. Enabled by a few decent local tea shops in a big city, I amassed a small cupboard of teas that I now find harsh and bad (haha, I’m getting in too deep!). With my move back to the US and subsequent geographic isolation from tea shops, I recently discovered the world of online tea vendors.
My cupboard is slowly growing but still small. Regardless I am interested in swaps, if you find something in my collection that you would like to try, ask away! I just can’t guarantee yet that I have a lot of it!
I’m very into Jade oolongs and anything that has a floral character (especially jasmine, rose, violet, and lychee scented things!). Most green teas, excepting the extremely bitter, are good in my book, and again I seek sweeter, fresher, greener types, though nutty/savory teas have their place (as long as they don’t tip over into salty!). I then to shy away from smokey or overly roasted teas and for this reason and the fact that I am not a fan of chocolate, everyone’s favorite blacks and wuyi oolongs tend to fall flat for me. White teas are alright but I don’t tend to reach for them unless they are floral scented. I rarely drink herbals, chamomile and I do not get along, but a basic vanilla rooibos, or some flavored green rooibos’ can be interesting.
In general, it could be said that I tend toward floral and sweet oolong, sheng (as well as moonlight whites and yabaos), matcha, and green teas.

As of now my rating system follows the school grading scale in terms of how well the tea performs and how well I like it (100-90 A, 89-80 B, etc.). Anything above 90 will eventually end up in my cupboard, though it’s fine to keep a B student around for daily drinkers!

Location

Athens, Ohio

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