The flowers
Chrysanthemum is the everyday one, drunk across China in hot weather and sold in named grades. Honeysuckle is higher in trade volume than almost anything on the European list and is nearly unknown outside China. Osmanthus supplies an apricot note, jasmine the most familiar scent in the world, magnolia a cooling camphor, and rose two different species from two directions.
Grades are real here
Chrysanthemum is not one product. Hangbaiju, gongju and taiju are distinct grades with distinct prices, and a packet that names none of them is telling you something. This is closer to how tea is graded than to how European tisanes are sold, and it rewards asking.
The scenting practice
Fresh blossoms are layered with finished tea overnight, several times, and removed each cycle — the tea absorbs the aroma and the flowers are discarded. It is why a good jasmine green tea often contains no visible flowers, and why loose blossoms in a packet usually indicate spraying with oil rather than layering.
The plant that is not what it says
Snow chrysanthemum is a Coreopsis grown in the Kunlun mountains and sold under a chrysanthemum name. It brews deep red-brown from three flowers where true chrysanthemum brews pale gold from a spoonful, and its packaging usually implies a tradition that is a few decades old.
Brewing
Cooler water than most people use — around 85 to 90 °C — and short steeps. These flowers are bitter when pushed, and the bitterness arrives long before the aroma runs out.