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How Chinese Herbs Are Prepared

There are at least three thousand varieties of Chinese Medicinal Herbs, most of which are gathered by specially trained persons in the great province of Sze Chuan, in Western China. These herbs consist of leaves, bark, berries, and roots, all of which must be cleaned and steamed in order to sterilize them. The roots, moreover, are given a special scrub and then steamed for twenty-four hours. After having been steamed, the herbs are either put into the sun to dry, or in case the weather is rainy, are dried under shelter in specially constructed ovens. As a rule, however, the herbs are not put through these processes in the province in which they are gathered, but are shipped immediately to Hong Kong to exporting firms having special facilities for cleaning, cutting, steaming and drying herbs on a large scale, as well as for sanitary packing and for shipping. While the processes to which the herbs are subjected in preparing them for market serve both to remove all foreign matter and to thoroughly sterilize them, they do not, however, rob them of their healing properties or of their delicate fragrance. When a well-sealed box of these carefully prepared herbs is received in the United States and opened, the room is filled with an aroma comparable only to that of the forests in May. Of recent years, in order to provide American patrons with herbs even fresher than those which have been a month on the ocean en route from Hong Kong, the Man Fook Hung Co., importers and wholesalers of Chinese herbs in Oakland, of which Fong Wan is treasurer, has imported its herbs in their natural state and has cleaned, steamed and dried them in their own building right here in Oakland, so that they may lose nothing of their strength before reaching the consumer.

There is one conspicuous difference between Chinese and Occidental herbs. The latter are generally sold in small packages and are ground almost to a powder, while the Chinese herbs from which one cup of tea is made are in large pieces, each leaf, berry, or piece of bark or root being distinct from the others. In fact, a package of -(3)- Chinese herbs, instead of containing two or three teaspoonfuls of powdered herbs, contains about three cupfuls of herbs of approximately twenty varieties, each in its natural color and form. Again, most Occidental herbs are merely steeped before drinking, but in order to make a cup of tea from a package of Chinese herbs, one must add four cups of water and boil them for half an hour, after which they are strained before drinking.