Batch 73 begins our seventh year of the Eco-Cha Tea Club, and we get to celebrate the occasion with a type of tea we've never sourced before. It's a soothing, delicate, yet full-bodied character of tea that combines a classic top quality Alishan High Mountain Jin Xuan Oolong with fresh Osmanthus flowers. If you didn't catch how these flowers were harvested, read about it here. The intrinsically pronounced creamy character of the Alishan Jin Xuan infused with the essence of Osmanthus flowers offers an exceptionally soft and satisfying flavor profile.

The freshly picked winter harvest of Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong leaves shown above absorbed moisture from the Osmanthus flowers that were sandwiched between layers of tea leaves. The leaves loosened slightly from their compressed, tightly rolled shape. After absorbing the flower essence, they were then delicately baked at low temperature to remove the moisture. This process resulted in a delicate buttery pastry profile with a subtle and complex character. It is a well integrated flavor profile that makes it challenging to distinguish individual flavor notes, but it is especially satisfying overall.

The brewed tea has a soft mouthfeel with soothing, subtly sweet qualities that just make you want to keep drinking it! The original green vegetal qualities have been transformed into mellowed and creamy qualities. It really is a comfort tea!

In the above brewing we used 11g of leaves in a 200mL gaiwan teapot, and brewed for about one minute with near boiling temp water with nice results. Play with the leaf to water ratio as you see fit, boiling temp water is fine. We haven't cold brewed this yet, but our intuition says YES! Those subtle floral qualities may just shine forth when not exposed to high temp water! Watch the video for the full scoop on how this brew sips down:

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