It's kind of hard to explain the scent and flavor of Osmanthus Fragrant or "Fragrant Olive" if you've never encountered it before. It's very peachy, a bit floral, a bit citrusy, kind of apple-y and oddly enough not very olive-y at all. I was lucky enough to walk through one of the biodomes in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden while the Osmanthus was in bloom. The smell filled the entire room and immediately confused and intoxicated me I ran from plant to plant trying to figure out what the hell it was! Then came upon the Frangrant Olive tree. It had some small yellowish blossoms and smelled totally strange but delicious.
Did some research on it and it turns out it's a pretty popular plant in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Chinese cuisine alike. Headed over to Flushing, Queens with my Chinese friend and we picked up a huge bag of it to brew into a mead. The mead turned out pretty nasty. Turns out dried osmanthus flowers are super bitter so it was more or less undrinkable. Osmanthus flowers are used to regulate menstruation and flavor tea, jelly, cake, wine, dumplings and other dishes.
Noticed that Hangsen had an Osmanthus flavored eLiquid and had to buy it on sight. It was blended a little too strong for me and I was kind of turned off by it at first but then I noticed there was a concentrate available. Just got it in the mail so figured I'd tell you guys about it. Basically the flavor of this flower is totally weird to me and very hard to describe but super unique and interesting to say the least. I can see it blending well with citruses, peaches, apricots, and apple based vapes to give it a little mysterious edge. Not sure it could be a main attraction but if you've seen my posts before you know I'm all about the WTF vapes.
The site I bought it from only allowed me to buy a lot of (10) 10mL bottles. I can't imagine using all of them myself and will probably only keep about 30mL. So if any here are interested send me a PM. I'd be happy to resell and ship for a little less than what I paid (~$3 + cost of shipping).
Two fun facts from wikipedia:
In late imperial China, the osmanthus was also associated with the imperial examinations, which were held in the 8th lunar month. The chengyu "pluck osmanthus in the Toad Palace" (蟾宫折桂, Chángōng zhé guì) was a euphemism for passing, in part since one would attract hangers-on as if he smelled as sweet as osmanthus thereafter. "Breaking the osmanthus twig and mounting the dragon" was another euphemism, in this case, for sex.
These are also known as Sweet Olive, they're all over here in NOLA. My wife loves the fragrance, I'd love to see if it matches up.
I love osmanthus! I bought some of the dried flowers to flavor rice wine. I was trying to recreate a particular wine I'd had in Xi'an and apparently that is what they use. It looks like FT has the osmanthus eliquid, too. Thanks for writing this up.
Yeah they have a few brands actually. But I'm not sure if they have the concentrate however.
Because you posted this, I became curious about other flavors that Hangsen might make. OMG. From the sublime [hawthorn, fennel, dried plum] to the ridiculous [at least vaping-wise]... baked potato, wasabi, ketchup, salt fish, turtle, beef steak? Things I totally can't figure out: lamberti [maybe Prosecco], Ban Lan Gen, maybe Woad/indigo, shaddock [probably pomelo, but they have a pomelo...], Vitamin A, B, C, D [still a mystery]. I mean, I'd heard of hotdog, but there's so many others....
Mine came in today. Thanks /u/dbbldz123! If anyone is wondering, this transaction couldn't have been smoother. The flavor doesn't have much aroma. Where did you start mixing it? I was going to try it at 4% or 5% based on my limited experience w Hangsen.
I started pretty low at 1% but didn't get too much of a flavor. 5% seems like the sweet spot for single flavor but can see it overpowering a mix. 10% was kind of unpleasant but that might change with a steep. The aroma is hard to catch off the bottle because I'm almost certain this flavor has some alcohol in it that will go away once you mix it up and probably will develop/steep off but still waiting on the results. Pretty inexperienced with it and offered it up the day I got my order in so anyone's guess at this point :)
We have something in the south called sweet olive and back before everyone had air conditioning the fragrance would fill your your house with the most wonderful scent. Kind of like a sweet banana. If a neighborhood had one growing you could smell several streets over. I wonder if they are related?