Snow chrysanthemum
A North American Coreopsis grown at altitude in the Kunlun mountains of Xinjiang and sold as a chrysanthemum, which it is not. It brews an extraordinary deep red-brown quite unlike any true chrysanthemum, and the name is the single most misleading one in the flower trade.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Coreopsis tinctoria
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Part used
- Flower
- Origin
- North America by origin; grown in the Kunlun range of Xinjiang
- Drunk in
- Xinjiang
Character
Sweet and faintly molasses-like, with a deep amber-red liquor from very few flowers. Two or three heads colour a whole cup, which is the first thing anyone notices.
Notes: dried fruit, molasses, honey
History
Native to the North American plains and introduced to China as an ornamental. Commercial cultivation in the high valleys around Hotan dates only to the late twentieth century, making this one of the newest botanical drinks in the Chinese market and one of the fastest to establish a premium.
How it is drunk
Drunk across northwestern China and marketed on its altitude and its colour. It has no long tradition anywhere, and the packaging that implies one is selling a story about the Kunlun rather than a documented practice.
Production
Harvested by hand over a short high-altitude flowering season and dried whole. Altitude is the marketed distinction and the grading is by the district it was grown in rather than by anything measurable in the flower.
Preparation
Infusion
Herbal infusion (tisane)
1–2 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 3 min
Category-typical practice rather than a measurement for this specific botanical. Most infusions are far more tolerant of a long steep than tea is.
What gets confused
Not a chrysanthemum. It is a Coreopsis, and anyone buying it expecting the light floral character of hangbaiju will get something much darker and sweeter.
Common mistakes
- Using a spoonful, as you would with true chrysanthemum. Three flowers is a cup.
Related botanicals
- Chrysanthemum — Sold as a chrysanthemum and is a Coreopsis. It brews deep red-brown where true chrysanthemum brews pale gold, and three flowers make a cup.
- Chrysanthemum — Sold as a chrysanthemum and grown in Xinjiang, but a North American Coreopsis. The naming authority lists five English names for it and not one contains the word chrysanthemum.
Comparisons
- Snow chrysanthemum vs chrysanthemum — One is a Coreopsis grown in the Kunlun mountains and sold under a name it has no claim to. It brews deep red-brown from three flowers where true chrysanthemum brews pale gold from a spoonful.
Guides
Evidence for this page
The botanical name, family and distribution above are checked against an external authority. Coreopsis tinctoria Nutt. — GRIN-Global Taxonomy record— retrieved and read, not countersigned by a named human. That source covers naming and distribution only. Everything else on this page — history, culture, production, flavour, preparation and buying advice — is TeaHQ’s own synthesis with no external source behind it.
Brewing parameters here are typical practice for the category rather than measurements of this plant, and each set says so.
This page makes no safety claim. It describes what Snow chrysanthemum is, where it comes from and how it is prepared — not what it does to a person. The absence of a safety note here is not a statement that the plant is safe. How TeaHQ handles this.