I have never heard of a Tea Olive, but will look into it. I seem to have an affinity for things that flower and smell nice
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Tea olive - Osmanthus fragrans - the cultivar 'Fudingzhu' is probably the most free flowering of the Osmanthus commonly available in the USA. Leaves don't reduce easily enough, and growth has an irregular spacing for internodes. a section of short internodes, with a cluster of buds, then a long internode with no buds, then a dense cluster of buds. Gives an awkward looking tree. Grow one as an ornamental house plant. They do well in bright shade. I never let mine get full sun. Summer outdoors, bring it into orchid's light garden before a hard freeze. They are only hardy to USDA zone 8.
My 'Fudingzhu' is usually in bloom beginning July or August, and will continuously have blooms open until late May. All winter long it will keep flowering. But I am not bothering to use it as bonsai, it is a ''houseplant'', and I can smell it 6 feet away. Very pleasant. You often will smell it long before you see the flowers. The flowers are quite small, pack a powerful, but sweet light perfume. Dried flowers have been used by Chinese to flavor tea and some other drinks and food.
Osmanthus heterophyllus has small holly like leaves, and does turn up as bonsai in some photos from Japan and as Chinese penjing. It has similar, sweet smelling flower, and is more cold hardy, maybe USDA zone 7 or maybe 6b. It needs more sun to do well, and is considered somewhat reluctant to bloom. It is rare to see a potted heterophyllus in bloom. There are another dozen Osmanthus species, I know very little about them. And a number of hybrids. The genus Osmanthus is related to Olea, though not a close Olea relative.
