Chinese tea ingredient ID?

January 2, 2018 10:50 PM

Today my family received some interesting Chinese teas from guests, and I'd like some help identifying them.

I tried brewing one of the teas just now, and one of the ingredients in particular baffles me. It looks like a brown blob, with a wrinkly, translucent, gelatinous outer "skin" and an inner bumpy darker mass. Here are pictures of the tea and the packet it came in, if anyone can read it. I think the circles might be astragalus root, but besides that I have no idea what kind of tea it is. It has a pleasant light taste, kind of minty-ish.

I'm also curious about the second tea--I think it might be oolong, but I'm not sure.

posted by Lurch to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

The brown blob is some kind of dried fruit. It looks like dried longan to me.

scroll down for dried longan pic here, didn't read the article

The printing of the name isn't the clearest especially the first two characters but it says "chrysanthemum tea with six ingredients(?)". The circles also look like astralagus root to me. It's one of those "health-promoting" mixed herbal tea with fruit.

The second tea is labelled "osmanthus flower oolong tea".
posted by whitelotus at 11:13 PM on January 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

this isn't super duper "traditional" or anything, feel free to smile and thank the giftee and never see the gift again
posted by porpoise at 11:20 PM on January 2, 2018

Best answer: I think the second character is 大 instead of 六 - so I'm guessing it refers to 胖大海 or malva nut. The pictures seem to match up with the blob, although I've to admit I've never seen it in real life. It's not unusual to pair it with chrysanthemum tea (菊花茶), as both are believed to have complementary "cooling" effects on the body.
posted by hellopanda at 12:21 AM on January 3, 2018

Best answer: Oh and the circles are more likely to be licorice root (甘草), which is frequently paired with chrysanthemum tea.
posted by hellopanda at 12:31 AM on January 3, 2018

Ok, after looking at some Chinese internet pics, I think hellopanda is right about the malva nut and the liquorice.
posted by whitelotus at 12:38 AM on January 3, 2018

Response by poster: Both of those look right, thanks!
posted by Lurch at 9:43 AM on January 3, 2018