By Eric Brand

I’m writing this blog from Guilin, one of China’s most beautiful cities. Guilin is one of the key cities of Guangxi province, and it is home to the distinctive karst mountains that feature prominently in Chinese landscape paintings. I’m on one of my regular trips to assess the raw materials and manufacturing of our products, so I am fortunate to have a chance to stop through the beautiful town of Guilin along the way. Guanxi province is home to a number of exotic Chinese medicinals, so I thought I’d blog a bit about some of the more famous items found here.

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Many Western practitioners are not familiar with an herb called Luo Han Guo (Momordicae Fructus), but this specialty of Guangxi province is widely known throughout the Chinese community. Luo Han Guo can be found in virtually any Chinese pharmacy in the West, and it is delicious when brewed as a tea. It is quite sweet, and extracts of Luo Han Guo (often written as Lo Han Guo) are sometimes used as a calorie-free sweetener akin to stevia. It has a distinctive taste that is often not completely removed with processing, so it hasn’t caught on as a true sugar substitute. Nonetheless, it is starting to appear as a sweetener in various health food products in America.

If steeped as a tea, Luo Han Guo has a fantastic flavor and it really moistens the throat and lungs. Luo Han Guo is rarely found in prescriptions (except for cough syrups) but it is a fantastic home remedy. It is perfect for smokers and it is also good for the aftermath of heat disease when the lung and fluids have been damaged by heat. Though it is slightly yin-nourishing, it can be used during cases of external contraction and it also has a phlegm-transforming ability that allows it to be used in cases of concurrent phlegm-heat. From the perspective of Chinese medicine, it is a sweet, cool medicinal that enters the lung and spleen, and it clears the lung and moistens the intestines. If you’ve never tried Luo Han Guo, swing by your local Chinatown pharmacy and try it out. Crack the shell and break up the seeds, then soak the whole thing (or half a big fruit) in boiled water. The taste is fantastic- sweet, rich, and moist. Here in Guilin, they sell the normal large fruits as well as small, irregular fruits that they claim come from wild plants. I’ve never seen these little wild ones at home.

Guangxi is also the main production region within China for Rou Gui (Cinnamomi Cortex). The Rou Gui grown in Guangxi is the main product that we use in TCM, and is typically sold in long, curled rolls. The thicker the bark, the better. However, while Guangxi produces the common, inexpensive cinnamon bark that is the mainstay for prescriptions in the clinic, ultimately the best cinnamon bark comes from Vietnam. The Vietnamese product is often sold as a whole sheet that is usually shaved down slightly on one or both ends. It is powerfully aromatic when scratched and the difference between the premium Vietnamese product and the standard Guangxi product is obvious and dramatic.

Gui Hua, known in English as osthmanthus flower, is another famous product from Guangxi province. Gui Hua are tiny little yellow flowers that are incredibly fragrant. Though tiny, their scent fills the air when the fresh plants are nearby, and they are somewhat pricey because they are extremely labor intensive to harvest (due to their light weight). Gui Hua is not commonly used in Chinese medicine, but it is sometimes added to oolong tea to give it a distinctive fragrance. In terms of TCM, it is a warm, acrid medicinal that transforms phlegm and disperses stasis; it also treats toothache and bad breath.

While not unique to Guangxi, there are also loquat fruits out in every market at this time of year. Loquat leaves (Pi Pa Ye) are a common medicinal for clearing lung heat and transforming phlegm, but the plant also produces a delightful yellow-orange fruit that moistens the lungs, relieves thirst, and downbears qi. The fruit is cool, sweet and sour, and enters the lung, liver, and spleen. A truly tasty treat, loquats are often seen falling off the trees in Southern California because the locals don’t know how delicious they are. But for really nice plump loquats, come to Guangxi!