Herb of the Immortals:

On a hot summer’s day, a sip of herbal tea can help us beat the heat. A local speciality that no tourist would want to miss, Taiwanese herbal tea lends itself to many variations. Xiancao, however, is a vital ingredient in virtually all recipes of traditional herbal tea in Taiwan.

In the days when most people traveled on foot, you could sometimes find pots of tea placed at roadsides across the island for travelers to recover their strength in the sweltering heat. Folk beliefs had it that the wonderfully revitalizing herbal tea was a gift from the immortals, so the plant came to be known as xiancao, which literally means “herb of the immortals.”

Freshly harvested xiancao has to be dried and stored for a time to shed the raw flavor of grass. The decoction made from the plants will then be more fragrant.

New cultivars

Xiancao desserts are known for their black color. But why are they black? Xiancao expert Ricky Yung-ming Yeh has the answer. Yeh is an assistant researcher at the Xinpu branch of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station (­TYDARES). He tells us that xiancao has gelling properties; when heated, the plant’s cell walls are ruptured, releasing gelatinous substances which give the grass jelly its color.

The plant itself, however, is far from black. Yeh says that most of the xiancao plants we come across in the fields have either a creeping or a semi-erect habit. They look confusingly similar to mint, except that mint has its characteristic strong scent, and xiancao is known for its rough, snaggy texture.

In days gone by, xiancao used to grow wild on the margins of cultivated fields, vegetable patches, and orchards. Writers long ago began to record its culinary and medicinal uses, recognizing its efficacy in alleviating heat stress and quenching thirst. Farmers would gather xiancao and dry it at home, storing it away to make herbal tea. When working in the fields, they would bring this tea with them to keep hydrated and avoid heatstroke.

The intensive cultivation of xiancao in Taiwan began in the 1960s. Plantations in places like Hsinchu County’s Guanxi, Miaoli County’s Tongluo, and Chiayi County’s Shuishang developed the capacity to supply the whole of Taiwan. Yeh tells us that most of the harvested xiancao is bought by farmers’ associations. As farmers are paid by the weight of their dried crops, they prefer to cultivate more prolific varieties of xiancao. TYDARES has been breeding cultivars that cater to farmers’ needs.

Yeh mentions Taoyuan No. 1 as an example. Now more than 20 years old, this cultivar has oval leaves and red stalks, with strong gelling properties. He draws our attention to another clump of xiancao. “This is Taoyuan No. 2, which was named and granted plant variety rights in 2014.” The commercial name of this cultivar, Yeh says, is ‘Xianghua’ (“scented flowers”) because “it has a very rich fragrance and is especially suitable for making herbal tea.” Taoyuan No. 3, or ‘Xianfeng’ (“immortal abundance”), was bred by hybridizing its two predecessors. This new cultivar is highly gelatinous, aromatic, and high-yielding—perfect for both herbal tea and grass jelly.

Refreshing and thirst-quenching, xiancao tea used to be indispensable to farmers in Taiwan. People also put it out at roadsides for travelers.

Ricky Yung-ming Yeh tells us that TYDARES develops new xiancao cultivars to cater to farmers’ needs: Taoyuan No. 3 is highly gelatinous, scented, and prolific.

Harvesting xiancao

Xiancao belongs to the genus Platostoma of the mint family (Lamiaceae) and is native to low-elevation mountains across East Asia and Southeast Asia, including China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. It has acquired many names. In Cantonese, it’s loengfan grass. In the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong, it’s called caoguo grass. In Taiwan, the indigenous Atayal people call it supurekku; the Paiwan, ryarikan. Thai people refer to it as chokai.

When it comes to xiancao, Hsinchu County’s Guanxi Township inevitably springs to mind. Chen Jinxi of the Guanxi Farmers’ Association says that local xiancao plantations occupy some 50 hectares, accounting for 70% of xiancao production in Taiwan. Guanxi has made a name for itself as a cradle of the herb of the immortals.

Xiancao is planted in March and April each year, and harvested in September and October. The harvest season, Chen says, coincides with the arrival of the northeasterly monsoon winds, which bear down on Hsinchu particularly fiercely, “serving as a natural drier.” Before harvesting the plants, farmers who have contracts with the farmers’ association need to have their crops tested to ensure that there are no residual pesticides. They then cut off the plants from the roots, turn them over, and leave them in the fields, exposed to the elements, for three or four days. The strong winds will make the plants 70‡80% dry, whereupon they can be moved indoors for further drying.

But why does xiancao take a long time to be ready for use? Chen explains: “Freshly harvested and dried xiancao retains the raw flavor of the plants. We have to give it time to shed that flavor and reach maturity, while it naturally absorbs the moisture in the air. Just like old tea, it requires natural ventilation. After two years, it is well cured, and the grassy smell is gone. The xiancao juice brewed from it is more fragrant.”

Taiwanese people have a soft spot for xiancao. An abundance of xiancao products have been developed, including tea bags, ready-made drinks, jelly, and powder for making velvety semisolid xiancao dessert.

Xiancao can be added to savory dishes such as chicken soup. This photo shows cold noodles with grass jelly.

The xiancao processing factory of the Guanxi Farmers’ Association uses steam to extract xiancao juice at high pressure.

Lo Shih Chiou Shui Tea

Herbal tea can be based entirely on xiancao, but sometimes it embraces other ingredients as well. Established more than 70 years ago, Lo Shih Chiou Shui Tea is a legendary brand that grew up in Taichung’s Central District and is now based in the East District. Its signature product, Chiou Shui Tea, combines multiple herbal ingredients.

Luo Mengzhi, third-generation manager of Lo Shih, says that her family comes from China’s Fujian Province, where generations of her ancestors practiced medicine. When an epidemic broke out there one year, one of her ancestors, Lo Chiou-shui, helped mitigate his neighbors’ sufferings by administering medicinal formulas to them. Chiou Shui Tea is named after him.

Luo Mengzhi’s grandfather Luo Hanping moved to Taiwan after World War II when the ROC government relocated here, and settled in Taichung. He adjusted his family’s medicinal formulas according to the island’s different climate, bringing in Taiwanese high-mountain oolong tea. “The ethnic Chinese have a tradition of using food to support or improve bodily health. The Bencao Gangmu [Compendium of Materia Medica] regards tealeaves as being capable of dispelling heat,” says Luo Mengzhi.

“Taiwan was experiencing an economic takeoff at that time. There were lots of blue-collar workers laboring away outdoors. Grandfather felt that his tea could provide welcome refreshment for laborers working under the blazing sun. But if the intended customers were to be working-class people, the price had to be kept low. So his business aimed for low profit margins and high sales volumes.”

In its early days, Lo Shih relied on betelnut ­kiosks for sales. Customers would gather around these places to chat and refresh themselves. Luo describes her grandfather’s extraordinary foresight: he had a fleet of iceboxes made, and struck deals with betelnut sellers whereby they would sell his Chiou Shui Tea for him, while he would lend each of them an icebox, in which they could also store other cold drinks. In this way, Chiou Shui Tea came to be distributed through more than 500 betelnut kiosks across Taichung, testifying to Luo Hanping’s business acumen.

Chiou Shui Tea has evolved with the times. At first the tea was sold as compressed “bricks.” Customers bought these and brewed tea at home at their leisure. As modern patterns of work and consumption began to prevail, the demand for convenience impelled Lo Shih to sell its tea ready-made in glass bottles. However, transportation proved to be challenging; the bottles were prone to breakage, and hygiene was also an issue. So eventually, around 30 years ago, the Luo family decided to replace the bottles with foil pouches. Packaged this way, the tea could keep for up to five days. To make it last longer, Lo Shih Tea later also started to use ring-pull cans, which can keep for two years.

Different ways of packaging the tea necessitate different production processes, resulting in subtle variations of flavor. While Lo Shih Tea opts for granulated sugar for its foil pouches, it uses rock sugar for its canned tea, because the pasteurization process required for the cans would cause granulated sugar to caramelize. The cooking process for canned tea takes one hour.

The ingredients of Chiou Shui Tea are simple: bitter melon, xiancao, Chinese hawthorn fruit, dried orange peel, and mint—all of which help cool our bodies in hot weather—mixed with Taiwanese oolong tea. What is complex, Luo explains, is the process. The ingredients, once acquired, have to be washed separately and dried in the hot summer sun. “Baking, infrared, oven drying—none of these will work. We must rely on the sun, or the flavors will be off the mark.” Accordingly, Lo Shih has to spend the summer months preparing the ingredients for the coming year. Luo’s words allow us to delve behind the scenes and imagine what it takes to safeguard time-honored flavors like Chiou Shui Tea.

Established more than 70 years ago, Lo Shih Chiou Shui Tea is a legendary brand that grew up in Taichung’s Central District and is now based in the East District. Its Chiou Shui Tea comes in tea bags, foil pouches, and cans.

Chiou Shui Tea is Lo Shih’s signature product. Its ingredients (right to left) are simple: bitter melon, xiancao, Chinese hawthorn fruit, dried orange peel, mint, and high-mountain oolong tea, all of which help us cool down in hot weather.

Luo Mengzhi shows us one of the iceboxes that her grandfather used to lend to betelnut vendors. Thanks to these iceboxes, Luo Hanping was able to sell his tea through more than 500 betelnut kiosks across Taichung. They testify to his business acumen.

Purple blooms

In response to the government’s One Town, One Product policy, which was launched in 1989, Guanxi has successfully turned its xiancao industry into a local speciality. Numerous xiancao products have been developed here.

Amid the rumble of machinery, Chen Jinxi gives us a tour of the xiancao factory of the Guanxi Farmers’ Association. Cooking xiancao used to be a time-­consuming process that required manual labor. The factory has adopted a semi-automatic model which uses steam to extract juice from xiancao plants at high pressure. The juice is piped to a storage tank, and then evaporated into concentrate for further processing.

The farmers’ association has brought out more than 20 kinds of xiancao products. Its soluble xiancao powder, developed in collaboration with TYDARES and academics from National Taiwan University, is especially popular.

In recent years, festivals have been held in places like Taoyuan’s Yangmei District and Chiayi County’s Shuishang Township to celebrate the beauty of xiancao blooms. Every year, in late November and early December, the xiancao fields are transformed into mauve dreamscapes, with tourists vying for the best spots to take snapshots to put on social media. However, xiancao flowers didn’t always command a lot of admiration. Ricky Yeh tells us with a smile: “If you told older farmers about xiancao blooms, they would scoff: ‘What a terrible waste!’ The plants could have been sold. Why would anyone let them flower?” Once xiancao begins to flower, the plant’s nutrients go to the seeds, and the flavor changes.

But the flowers give off an aura of romance. Their exquisite tiny petals are of a pale purple color, resembling seas of lavender from a distance—so much so that these fields have acquired the sobriquet “Taiwanese Provence.” The lovely soft blooms and the black herbal tea form a charmingly mysterious antithesis.

The Guanxi Farmers’ Association has developed numerous xiancao products.

The romantic aura of xiancao’s mauve flowers turns the fields into popular tourist attractions. (photo by Jimmy Lin)