https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A4PeQB2Vq1CW8xtc-5KQOA
Everyone is welcome to share their experiences with the medicine in the replies to facilitate other students’ searching and learning.
35. Bamboo Leaves
The water brewed from them tastes somewhat like the water used to boil zongzi (zongzi leaves, with northern China using reed leaves and southern China using broad Ruzhou leaves).
So it makes sense that broad Ruzhou leaves are also called “big leaf bamboo.”
Not very tasty, and when cooled, drinking it in large gulps can be a bit nauseating, similar to licking a cool bamboo mat; but if sipped hot in small amounts, it’s quite interesting, with a lingering sweetness. Sensitive students can perceive what I referred to when discussing the Thirty-Six Golden Prescriptions, the bamboo leaves’ ability to “clear turbidity.”
Chewing the bamboo leaves directly tastes even worse. The fibers are quite tough and hard to chew, so the recommended method for this medicine is still “boiling.”
The bamboo trio: bamboo leaves, bamboo sap, and bamboo shavings. I originally planned to put bamboo sap and bamboo leaves together, but the manufacturer couldn’t meet the delivery time, so it will be next batch. Bamboo sap is also interesting; the difference between fire-roasting process and water-boiling process is significant in price. This time, we provide the fire-roasting process.
Generally speaking, for all Chinese medicines, the approaches are to chew directly + brew in water, except for Dendrobium (Shihu), which is special and best consumed as juice, so it’s necessary to try three ways: chew directly + brew in water + juice and filter (if conditions allow).
423. Dendrobium (Shihu)
You can see the brewed water looks basically like clean water, with just a slight fresh fragrance of Dendrobium.
Those who spent big money on earring Dendrobium and the like, the brewed water is only slightly better (after all, dried products absorb water and some active ingredients dissolve out). Grass Dendrobium / Yellow Dendrobium is another thing, which can be boiled out for some essence, but the efficacy is much poorer than the “right Huo Mountain Dendrobium,” so I never prescribe Dendrobium to patients; I only advise them to juice it themselves at home.
After tasting the Dendrobium water, chew it directly. Because the Dendrobium has been stewed with hot water, the cold and damp disadvantage harmful to the stomach is basically gone (chewing raw directly can cause some discomfort). Chew twice and the sticky substance is squeezed out. Chewing more can separate the fibers and sticky substances, then spit out the fibers and swallow the sticky substances.
This is why I say you can taste it even without a juicer—but if suffering from chronic atrophic gastritis or gastric cancer and taking it for one or two months, juicing is definitely required.
When chewing, there is still some pricking sensation in the mouth, not caused by fibers, but due to alkaloids, similar to the mouth pricking sensation of pineapple. Juicing and filtering removes the pricking sensation, possibly because the corresponding compounds are filtered out or the concentration drops below the threshold.
Each person is given 50 grams of this. For those without juicing conditions, just taste it; the extra can be shared with roommates.
Dendrobium’s principles of nourishing Yin fluids and stomach can be understood by chewing once.
First, the polysaccharides can retain water. Normally, no matter how much water you drink, it comes out as urine. With Dendrobium, more water stays in the body;
Second, the thick Dendrobium juice, when it reaches the stomach, can nourish, repair, and isolate the gastric mucosa from gastric juices, so it is good for the stomach.
This is similar in principle to kudzu powder (a southern beverage, not to be confused with medicinal Chai Ge), sesame paste, lotus root starch.
Bai Ji (Bletilla) also uses sticky substances to protect the gastric mucosa, but its energy is somewhat overwhelming. More on this later.
425. Nine-Steamed Nine-Sunned Polygonatum (Huangjing)
The concept of nine steaming and nine sunning has been popular for some years, mainly with Polygonatum (Huangjing), Rehmannia (Dihuang), and sesame, all kidney-nourishing medicines.
But only Polygonatum truly requires the nine steaming and nine sunning process.
The principle is simple: Polygonatum is a “cheap version of Yuanzing.” When eaten, it can really fill the outer dantian (energy center), but everyone can think of it as “a lump of water.” Swallowing, digesting, and having it fill the outer dantian relies on Yuan Qi (vital energy) to transport and transform it.
During this process, it is possible that halfway through transformation, the body’s energy is insufficient, and the Polygonatum is lost via diarrhea, or more extremely, the person collapses (the original meaning of “deficiency cannot be tonified”).
So people figured out a method to partially transform Polygonatum’s energy outside the body, substituting for human Yuan Qi, by steaming with yellow rice wine and sun-drying, using earth fire and sunlight fire to transform Yin into Yang.
Nowadays, most pharmaceutical factories’ wine-processed Polygonatum is not really steamed and sun-dried; they just bake it in an oven until the surface changes color and consider the process complete. After all, the wine-processed Polygonatum and raw Polygonatum have no difference in the active ingredient detection standards, just different properties.
Then, wine-processed Polygonatum used in decoction or brewed water is basically at the three-steamed three-sunned stage, because it is boiled to extract effective ingredients—three steaming and sunning is enough. Only the wine-processed Polygonatum that is eaten directly requires nine steaming and nine sunning.
Directly eating Polygonatum has its subtleties. Some students who previously bought nine-steamed nine-sunned Polygonatum said it was especially delicious, purely sweet, tasted like sweet potato. That very likely was wine-processed sweet potato dry—real wine-processed Polygonatum should still have some medicinal taste.
As for the specific tasting details, you can refer to senior disciple Meng Haipeng’s gourmet-level reflections. I can only say Cai Lan would call him brother, but I feel inferior: “Tonight, on an empty stomach, I tried immortal-grade Polygonatum, following my senior’s advice, eating thin slices directly. First, it had abundant oiliness, sweet entrance, no off-flavors, slightly with a fleeting acidic sweetness. It had a particularly rich taste, with a strong medicinal fragrance or rather the fragrance of Polygonatum, and the bitterness was very mild—I hardly tasted it. After eating a slice, the flavor of the saliva in mouth noticeably changed, becoming sweeter, and hunger decreased. The head and face felt slightly warm, the warmth first felt at head and face then slowly moved down the back. The warmth was mild, completely different from warmth after a full meal, similar to the sensation after practicing Yijing tendons, but also somewhat different. After drinking water, the newly produced saliva still had a lingering sweetness.”
However, the Polygonatum I gave him was wild nine-steamed nine-sunned polygonatum aged twenty years. Let’s return to the nine-steamed nine-sunned (ordinary) Polygonatum we have at hand.
First, the brewed water has a noticeable sweetness—because when steaming, Polygonatum is soaked in syrup first, so the final taste is good (no one would think Polygonatum is naturally this sweet. Previously, I brought fresh Polygonatum to students of the LongXitang Chinese Medicine Association, and it was extremely unpleasant).
Of course, Polygonatum itself does have some lingering sweetness, along with slight sourness and bitterness, as well as the unique “Polygonatum flavor.”
Sensitive students should perceive that after drinking, their dispersed Qi around will gather toward the dantian, which is another major source of Polygonatum’s “filling essence” efficacy, i.e., converting Qi into essence—calming the mind, aiding sleep, returning fire to the source, and other effects are based on this.
For directly chewing Polygonatum slices, everyone should try for themselves. In terms of efficacy, there isn’t much difference from boiling. I just ate a slice of nine-steamed nine-sunned Polygonatum brewed water and faintly tasted its fresh texture, somewhat crisp.
The big principle is: high-quality goods—best eaten directly; medium-quality goods—boil and eat without feeling bad; very poor products—just don’t buy, no use even if bought.