"touch the essence" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It means to get to the core or fundamental nature of something. Example: In order to truly understand the complexity of human emotion, one must touch the essence of each individual's personal experiences.
Advances in reproductive technology often create enormous furor because they seem to touch the essence of human existence.
"Decisions over women's bodies touch the essence of patriarchy, which is imprinted on the whole political spectrum," she says.
In another, Atife asks whether her love of life and a sense of her womanhood are crimes: to "touch the essence of earth", "let my hair float free", "put colour on my lips/to say that I have a mouth".
"You can touch the essence of why something was written.
Few later artists - I think of Caravaggio and Rembrandt - have touched the essence of human life as directly as this.
In contrast, The Child in Time by Ian McEwan is unbearably sad as it touches the essence of parental love.
Up until now, the government has either bluntly rejected external criticism as "interference in its internal affairs" or made cosmetic changes and minor concessions, without touching the essence of its policies.
"We entered a world of immense beauty and awe, where questions touching the essence of human life of knowledge and virtue, of individual excellence and common good, or philosophy and politics were directly before us," said Nichols of Cropsey, who chaired her dissertation committee.
The interview is supplanted with quotes from SoulCycle gurus whose commentary truly touches the essence of what Afrojack is all about.
Morandi used the subtlety of his design to infuse his bottles, bowls and jars with a meditative mood, and tried, in his own words, "to touch the depth, the essence of things".
It touches the very essence of what theatre can do".
