Ginseng
A slow-growing forest root of northeast Asia, cultivated for six years before harvest and among the most valuable agricultural products in Korea and northeast China. Wild mountain ginseng and cultivated field ginseng are traded as effectively different commodities at wildly different prices.
Identity
- Botanical name
- Panax ginseng
- Family
- Araliaceae
- Part used
- Root
- Origin
- Korea, northeast China and the Russian Far East
- Drunk in
- Kaesong, Geumsan, Jilin, Wisconsin
Character
Earthy and firmly bitter with a sweet finish that arrives late. Red ginseng is rounder and more caramelised than white; both need a long simmer to give anything at all.
Notes: earth, wood, liquorice
History
Traded from the Korean peninsula and Manchuria for well over a thousand years, and the Kaesong region has been the reference growing district for most of that time. American ginseng, a different Panax species, was exported from the Appalachians to Canton in enormous volume from the 1780s and was one of the first American goods to reach China directly.
How it is drunk
Brewed as insam-cha in Korea, simmered into samgyetang with chicken and rice, and given as a formal gift in a presentation box — the gifting is a substantial part of the market. Steamed red ginseng and dried white ginseng are prepared and sold as separate products.
Production
Grown under shade cloth for six years, which exhausts the soil for a decade afterwards and forces growers to move fields. White ginseng is peeled and dried; red ginseng is steamed before drying, which darkens it and lets it keep for years.
Preparation
Decoction · Infusion
Boiling and decoction
1–3 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 30 min
What gets confused
Panax ginseng, American Panax quinquefolius and Siberian eleuthero are three different plants sold under overlapping names, and only the first two are Panax. Age, grade and wild-versus-cultivated status drive prices that vary by three orders of magnitude.
Common mistakes
- Steeping slices in a cup for three minutes. This is a thirty-minute simmer at minimum.
Related botanicals
- Burdock root — Earthy, bitter roots with a late sweetness, both needing a long simmer to give anything up.
Comparisons
- Ginseng vs astragalus — Two northeast Asian roots that both go into the same soups and could hardly differ more in price. One is a six-year crop that exhausts its soil; the other is an ordinary agricultural legume.
- Ginseng vs polygonatum — Two East Asian roots at opposite ends of the price range, both simmered, and only one of them is something anyone drinks by the jug.
Guides
Evidence for this page
This page is TeaHQ synthesis throughout. No external source stands behind any statement on it, including the botanical name. Twenty of the 150 botanicals have had their names and distribution checked against a taxonomic authority and this is not one of them.
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 Ginseng 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.