Generally, freshly picked osmanthus is not eaten directly, because fresh osmanthus contains tannins, which taste bitter and lack fragrance. After long-term preservation and storage, the astringency will be reduced or even disappeared. If you need to eat it urgently, you can put the fresh osmanthus in a cloth bag, squeeze out the bitter water, mix it well with sugar, press it tightly and seal it in a bottle or can, and leave it for a few days before eating.

If you are not in a hurry, a small amount of osmanthus is generally pickled in the following two methods:

Method 1: Sugar osmanthus

Rinse an appropriate amount of osmanthus with water. Drain the water, mix it with white sugar of the same weight or twice as much as the sweet-scented osmanthus, and put it into a jar. It will become sweet-scented osmanthus with good color, aroma and taste.

Method 2: Salted osmanthus

Take 500 grams of osmanthus, add 125 grams each of salt and alum and 500 ml of cold water, stir briefly. Sealed in a bottle, it can be stored for a long time. This method can keep the color and fragrance of the sweet-scented osmanthus unchanged. Take it out before use and rinse it with cold water.

The osmanthus products processed and kept fresh by the above method can generally be directly incorporated into various sweets and snacks for consumption. Add a little to snacks such as glutinous rice with sweet fermented rice, eight-treasure rice, lotus heart porridge, bean paste dumplings, etc., the aroma will be fragrant and your appetite will double. In addition, you can also use osmanthus as seasoning to make your own homemade sweets such as lotus root powder and osmanthus cake, osmanthus yuanxiao, osmanthus cake, osmanthus glutinous rice siomai, osmanthus sugared lotus root, osmanthus sugar taro, osmanthus chestnut cake, osmanthus sweet potato cake and so on.