Unique would be the correct term; however that sometimes equates to a bad connotation such as this time.
I tend to only write positive reviews, but I will adjust this one to provide some help from my experience. Floral notes work best for that vegetable like tea taste and the lighter teas. There’s a reason why jasmine works well with green tea but not so well with black tea; just a balancing act of flavors.
When it comes to this blend, there’s a strong upfront roast profile to the tea with a smokey finish while having the osmanthus flavor throughout. While I can say the flavoring is balanced and does what it should, the base of this really throws off the experience. When it comes to floral, a dry mouth feel coming from the smokiness makes it hard to enjoy while a stronger dancong could be acceptable for such a thing.
What would I change? Well, I think a base tea that already agrees with the taste being mixed in would be best. It would be cool to see a dayuling and osmanthus or a dancong osmanthus as both have a nice thickness that ends in a wet way rather than dry.
There’s just something odd about drinking this that made me want to stop, but I went through four steeps to ensure the smokiness stays as well as the roast. The osmanthus lasted as well so that’s good, there’s a good technique being used just needs a more agreeable base.
I like osmanthus more with greener oolongs in my experience-namely being the 7 oolong blend you sold vs Mountain Tea’s roasted Jin Xuan blended with osmanthus. The first time I had it reminded me of toffee, but now most roasted Taiwan oolongs just taste like barbecue nuts to me.