TCM and Yuan Dynasty Tea
Introduction
“Formerly whenever THE EMPEROR SHIZU [Qubilai] would eat or drink, he had to investigate [the properties of his food] in the herbal manuals. Whenever HE would be active or quiet, he had to balance [his activity or repose] according to restrictions. For this reason HIS health improved and he attained a great age. HE thereby stored up inexhaustible good fortune for his descendants.”
These were the words of Hu Sihui as he presented his dietary manual to the emperor of Mongol China in the year 1330. As he explained to the emperor, the purpose of this manual was to create a comprehensive guide to nutrition, including detailing recipes and their medicinal properties, in order to keep the emperor and his court healthy. This manual was entitled Yin-shan cheng-yao (YSCY), which translates to “Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor's Food and Drink.” It was written by Hu Sihui, who served as an imperial dietary physician for the Yuan Dynasty court in the early 1300s. His recipes were noted to display such qualities as “commitment to moderation, simple elegance, and delicate sophistication (Hu Sihui 2016, 175).” Today, the YSCY serves as an extensive historical guide to Yuan Dynasty cuisine. It is divided into three major chapters that contain introductory materials, annotated recipes, and an illustrated inventory of dietary material, respectively. This manual reflects the most sophisticated culinary practices and highest quality cuisine of Yuan Dynasty China. But above all, the purpose of this manual was to serve as a medical guide to food.
During this time period, Chinese food and medicine were inextricably intertwined. Medical practices were primarily based on the concept of bringing balance to a vital life force called Qi. The food that we consume affects the body’s balance of Qi, the body’s balance of Qi determines its healthiness. This lack of separation between food and medicine is reflected in the YSCY; most of its recipes in its second chapter contain explicit medical annotations, and even the ones that don’t were still associated with health benefits (Hu Sihui 2016, 171).
Medical practices concerning the maintenance of balanced Qi are still employed in China today. This body of medicine is called Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM for short. While many people vouch for the results of TCM, many others doubt its scientific backing, and there exists much discourse regarding the efficacy of TCM practices. My goal for this project was to apply the YSCY to an investigation of Yuan Dynasty medicinal cooking as it pertains to the TCM debate. To do so, I selected a recipe for “Detoxifying Dried Orange Peel Puree” from the YSCY that I plan to recreate and test. Although it is labeled as a puree, this recipe strikes me as a tea, and I would classify it under the herbal medicines branch of TCM. My hope was that by recreating and testing this recipe, I would be able to draw well-informed conclusions about the modern value of TCM.
The Experiment
The Recipe
[111.] Detoxifying Dried Orange Peel Puree
It is used to cure intoxication that persists, vomiting and bile in the throat.
[Prepared] fragrant orange [Citrus sinensis] peel (one chin; remove the white.), prepared mandarin orange peel (one chin; remove the white.), sandalwood (four liang), kudzu flower (one-half chin), mung bean flower (one-half chin), ginseng (two liang remove the green shoots), cardamom kernel (two liang), salt (six liang; roast).
Make a fine powder of ingredients. Each day take a little in boiling water on an empty stomach. (Hu Sihui 2016, 384)
Preparation
My first consideration with recreating this recipe was acquiring the ingredients. None of the ingredients listed (excluding salt, of course) were things I had readily accessible in my pantry. Fortunately, after a couple hours at Olive Supermarket and a few conversations with helpful employees, I triumphantly returned home with orange peel, tangerine (mandarin orange) peel, ginseng, and cardamom kernel in hand. Since I was unable to find sandalwood, kudzu flower, and mung bean in store, I decided to order them online. I found powdered sandalwood on Amazon quite easily, and after a bit of searching, I was excited to find a kudzu flower tea on Etsy from a popular seller with very positive reviews. The mung bean flower proved to be the most elusive ingredient. Unfortunately for me, there is a very popular Korean drama whose title translates to “Mung Bean Flower.” So, my Google searches were completely bogged down by pages upon pages of results about this Korean drama. And sadly, it soon became apparent that the kudzu flower tea I ordered would not arrive on time for my experiment. So, my next step was to identify suitable substitutes for these two flowers.
My first thought here was to look at other recipes in the YSCY that used either of these two ingredients. But to my surprise, neither of these flowers were mentioned in the YSCY outside of this recipe. I decided that I had two options: I could use another part of the plant instead of the flower, or I could use another flower of similar appearance and quality. For the first option, I found mung beans and arrowroot starch at Olive Supermarket (kudzu flower grows on arrowroot plants). But, I was hesitant to take this direction– after all, the root a plant is quite different from its flowers. Because of my hesitancy, I decided to make two separate batches of tea; one with mung beans and one without. In the end, I was unable to notice any difference between the two teas, so this side-experiment was inconsequential. However, I had much greater reservations about using the arrowroot starch. Because starches tend to act as thickening agents when added to liquids, I was worried that the arrowroot starch would compromise the consistency of the tea. So, I decided to choose the second option fo the kudzu flower and sought out a flower of similar appearance. The closest approximation to the color and size of kudzu flowers I could find in store were some purple-tinted dried roses. The figure below depicts the dried roses I purchased (left) alongside a kudzu flower (right).
Admittedly, I am curious how this recipe would have turned out if I had not made these substitutions. If I had unlimited time and resources, I would repeat this experiment with the correct flowers. However, since these flowers made up a relatively small portion of the tea, I believe that my substitutions were sufficient for maintaining the authenticity of this recipe. Below is a gallery of all my ingredients for this recipe. From left to right: ginseng, orange peel, tangerine peel, mung bean, sandalwood, cardamom, rose.
Procedure
After purchasing the ingredients, I thought the rest of my experiment would be easy: simply grind up the ingredients into a powder and steep it in boiling water. I purchased a mortar and pestle for the job, picked up my cardamoms, and got to work. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had severely underestimated the difficulty of this process. After grinding for about 30 minutes, I managed to crush the cardamom kernels into smaller chunks and flakes– certainly not the fine powder that the recipe calls for– but I was satisfied enough to move on. I wasn’t too discouraged until I brought out the ginseng root. When I put it in the mortar and started grinding, it was almost immediately apparent that it was too hard and solid to grind up by hand. After much deliberation, I decided to bring out my roommate’s blender. I was hesitant to use it at first, because it didn’t exactly feel authentic to the recipe; I don’t think anyone had a Vitamix blender in the 1300s. However, I came to realize that there was no feasible and timely way I could grind up the ingredients without the use of modern technology, and I decided that it was more important to achieve the fine powder that the recipe called for than to preserve traditional methods. So, I measured out my ingredients and blended each of them separately. The Vitamix was a lifesaver; it powderized the ingredients with impressive speed and fineness.
Next came the salt. Although salt was the easiest ingredient to acquire, it ended up being the strangest one to prepare. Firstly, the recipe called for 6 liang (225g) of salt. Taking into account the measurements for the other ingredients, salt accounts for 10% of this tea. To me, that seemed like a lot of salt to put in a tea, and I worried that the final result would have an extremely salty taste. But, as it turned out, I hardly noticed the salt in the final product. I did some research and learned that salt actually helps reduce bitterness in tea and coffee (Helmenstine 2021). My other consideration with the salt was that the recipe called for it to be roasted. I have never heard of roasting salt independently, and my instinct was that this would not make a difference. But, I followed the recipe and roasted the salt despite my suspicions. I set the oven to 375 F (Hu Sihui 2016, 174) and roasted the salt for about 20 minutes. The salt came out with a slightly darker color and stronger flavor. If I could repeat this experiment, I would like to try it without roasting the salt. I suspect it would have made a small but noticeable difference in the taste of the tea.
The image below shows all my powerderized ingredients, measured and sorted into Ziplock bags. From left to right, top to bottom: cardamom, ginseng, dried rose flower, sandalwood, mung bean, salt (roasted), orange peel, tangerine peel.
After grinding up all of my ingredients, I mixed them together into two large bowls of powder: one with mung beans (left), and one without (right).
Results
The last step in this recipe was to “take a little in boiling water on an empty stomach.” So, before I ate breakfast the next morning, I boiled some water and added about a teaspoon of my powdered mixture to it. In order to induce a sore throat, I made sure to do a lot of loud talking the night before I tested my tea. And by happenstance, I woke up that morning feeling congested with a headache as well as a sore throat. Although I was not able to replicate the symptoms listed in the recipe, I think I was in an appropriate condition to test this tea’s medicinal effects.
The tea appeared quite dark in color and relatively opaque (see image below). The taste of the tea was bitter but pleasant. I’m no tea expert, but to me, it tasted rather like a black tea. I enjoyed drinking it and readily went back for a second cup. And in fact, I found it to be quite soothing on my throat. Shortly after drinking the tea, my headache and sore throat subsided. Of course, I cannot conclusively say that this tea cured my symptoms. I think it is possible (and perhaps even probable) that any tea, or even just water, would have had a similar effect. Nonetheless, this trial still serves as a piece of evidence towards the efficacy of the medicinal effects of this recipe.
Reflections
In order to ground my findings in modern science, I decided to do some research on the primary ingredient in this recipe, citrus peel. My research showed that the medicinal qualities of citrus peels have indeed been corroborated by contemporary medical science. Citrus peels contain an essential oil called d-limonene antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties; that means it combats bacteria, viruses, and fungi as well as swelling, fever, and pain. D-limonene has been used by physicians to relieve heartburn and improve cholesterol, and it has even been associated with preventing cancer (Matesz 2010).
So the big question: Does this recipe actually work?
My answer: Maybe. I cannot make any definitive conclusions based on my experiment. After all, I am just one person, and this experiment is my singular experience.
I’m sorry if that answer is underwhelming, but please allow me to explain.
TCM endures a lot of criticism in today’s era. Many scholars see it as an unscientific and backwards practice. Accordingly, When I set out to conduct this experiment, I had a very scientific mindset. I wanted to recreate the tea as closely as possible so that I could conclusively evaluate its medicinal effects. However, it turned out that I learned much more from the process of recreating this recipe than from the results. I really enjoyed making this recipe because although it was more difficult than I had expected, every setback brought up new and interesting questions for me to investigate. My inability to acquire the kudzu and mung bean flowers prompted some critical thinking on ingredient substitutions. The mortar and pestle vs. The Vitamix blender debate made me realize how difficult powderizing these ingredients must have been without the use of modern technology and gave me a greater appreciation for the work that must have gone into creating these recipes. And my concerns about the salt taught me to trust the recipe and see where it takes me, even if I don’t initially understand it. And despite these setbacks, I would consider my experiment an overall success. I created a good-tasting tea that displayed healing qualities and felt authentic to the recipe.
Throughout the course of this experiment, my purpose shifted from a scientific analysis to a cultural exploration. For many of its modern followers, TCM practices hold profound cultural significance; this body of medicine represents a significant component of traditional Chinese culture as a whole. The process of recreating this recipe deepened my understanding of and appreciation for the Chinese tradition of food and medicine. It reframed my perception of TCM from a scientific practice to a cultural one. Rather than being dismissive of such a rich and long standing culture, we should strive to recognize these practices as a connection to the historical intersection of spirituality and food in China.
Works Cited
Anne Helmenstine, “Does Salt in Coffee Reduce Bitterness?” Science Notes, last modified May 10, 2021, https://sciencenotes.org/does-salt-in-coffee-reduce-bitterness.
Don Matesz, “Citrus Peel Medicine,” Mother Earth Living, last modified September 15, 2010, https://www.motherearthliving.com/health-and-wellness/citrus-peel-medicine.
Hu sihui, A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol era as Seen in Hu Szu-hui's Yin-shan cheng-yao: Introduction, Translation, Commentary, and Chinese text, translated by Paul D. Buell and Eugene N. Anderson, with appendix by Charles Perry (Oxon; New York : Routledge, 2016)
Qing Liu, “The cultural dilemma in the process of uniting Chinese and Western medicine from 1940 to 1950,” J. Chin, Sociol. 6, 4 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-019-0092-2