The Hidden Flavors of Medicinal Herbs:

Historic Beimen Street in Hsinchu City was once a critical node in the transport of goods into Northern Taiwan. Today, directly across from the centuries-­old Changhe Temple there sits a building with an elegant baroque facade that is home to the Hong An Tang traditional Chinese pharmacy, which is still steadfastly in operation despite a decline in local foot traffic.

As we are warmly greeted by the fourth-generation operators of the pharmacy, brothers Robbie and Stanley Hsieh, we feel as if we are stepping into a time tunnel.

Chinese medicine and culture

The forerunner to Hong An Tang was the Senmao Pharmacy, founded by Xie Sen­hong, the brothers’ great-grandfather. The family traces its ancestry back to the politician Xie An (320–385 CE) of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Coming from Nanjing’s Wuyi Lane, commemorated in a poem by Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty, the Xies have traditionally been a family of scholars. Both Xie Senhong and his eldest son, Xie Linji, were very active in the local literary scene, and took part in the Taiwanese Poets’ Society, an annual poetry convention held from 1924 to 1937.

The layout and decor of the old pharmacy remain as they were in days gone by, as if sealed in a time capsule, and one can visualize the Hsieh brothers’ forebears working here back then. Each drawer in the gigantic medicine cabinet holds different medicinal ingredients, while the wide front counter serves as a workspace where shop staff have over time felt customers’ pulses and made up Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) prescriptions. However, back in the day this same counter was used for customer service only by day, for at night it became a desk where the brothers’ great-grandfather and grandfather wrote poetry.

Stanley Hsieh says that in the past TCM pharmacies were open virtually year-round without a break. Even at night, as long someone was at home, they would try to keep an eye on the shop, and to help customers who came by with urgent needs, they always left the door open a crack. However, this made it easy for insects to get inside.

To keep these insects at bay, Xie Senhong combined ingredients from the medicine cabinet and gradually developed Hong An Tang’s own special mosquito repellent. The white cotton bags that the shop fills with eight medicinal herbs including cloves, mugwort, and Korean mint give off a powerful fragrance that mosquitos assiduously avoid.

It must be said that for TCM pharmacies today, “medicines” are no longer the main seller. Hong An Tang grinds both white and black pepper each week and cuts dong quai (Angelica chinensis) each month. These freshly prepared food ingredients contain abundant essential oils, making them richly aromatic. The products sold in hyper­markets, which may spend months on the shelves or be mixed with additives, simply cannot compare.

In addition, following the concepts of TCM, the shop offers herbal teas that call to mind the herbal medicinal practices of yesteryear. One teabag can weigh as much as 20 grams, and they include solid ingredients such as large chrysanthemum flowers, complete red sage roots, and mulberry mistletoe. Their pouches are much more substantial than the flavored beverage bags often seen in the market that weigh a mere three to five grams and whose contents have been crushed into tiny fragments.

You can feel the historic ambience in the century-old building where Hsinchu’s Hong An Tang TCM pharmacy is located.

The mosquito repellent bags invented by Xie Senhong contain eight different medicinal herbs.

The stories of this old pharmacy are as deep as the long, narrow house where it is located, which exudes the charm of its era.

Stanley Hsieh is part of the fourth generation of his family to run Hong An Tang.

Convenience store of days gone by

In contrast to the modern era, with its emphasis on specialization in society, in traditional society medicinal herbs were not used solely for therapeutic purposes. In the past, TCM pharmacies played a role in all aspects of daily life.

Traditional herbal pharmacies were “one-stop shops” for everything from fortifying decoctions for women to drink after a birth or miscarriage, sodium bicarbonate for making honeycomb toffee for children, herbs for funeral ceremonies, black and white pepper for seasoning food, ingredients for medicinal cuisine, and “purple clouds” ointment to promote healing of cuts, to cosmetics, teeth whitening powder, and even hair dye. Lu Junxiong, third-generation operator of Shunchang Chinese Pharmacy in Kaohsiung’s Fengshan District, recalls that in days gone by, to meet the needs of the local community, “We only closed for one day at the Lunar New Year and were open the other 364 days of the year.”

Although TCM shops are called “pharmacies,” the scope of their services far exceeds just medicines. This characteristic enables these businesses to survive in an age in which Western medicine predominates and TCM clinics, pharmaceutical and cosmetics shops, and hypermarkets divvy up the TCM herbal products market.

Every pharmacy’s medicine cabinet was custom-made according to the shop’s needs, and each cabinet has a story behind it.

Hong An Tang’s dong quai is sliced at the pharmacy; its fresh fragrance fills the air.

Taiwanese enjoy eating dishes made with broth that includes TCM ingredients, including mutton hotpot, ginger duck with rice wine, and spicy hotpot.

The third-generation operators of Shunchang Chinese Pharmacy are seeking new possibilities for the use of TCM ingredients. From left: Lu Chun-chin, Lu Junxiong, and Lu Shu-ju.

Chinese 13-spices mix, known as an advanced version of five-spice powder, can be used in all types of cooking and is quite common in Taiwan.

Medicines into spices

For Taiwanese, TCM medical materials are not merely medicines, but also foods with medicinal properties. Sichuan peppercorns, which have been popular in recent years and are used to infuse oils with flavor, not only are an irreplaceable ingredient in spicy hotpot, from the TCM perspective they also have analgesic and anaesthetic effects. Meanwhile, wood ear fungus and snow fungus are common on Taiwanese dining tables, but they also have the ­effect of “moistening the lungs” to relieve coughs and release phlegm, and are known as “the poor man’s bird’s nests.” You could say of many individual TCM products that “they are medicines when in the medicine cabinet but culinary ingredients when in the kitchen,” says Lu Chun-chin, one of the third-generation owners of Shunchang Chinese Pharmacy.

Even for people who are unaware of the uses of TCM ingredients, these are much more common than one would think. Besides basic kitchen necessities including black and white pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise, as well as medicinal foods widely available in night markets such as four agents decoction, eight gem decoction, and ten herbs tonic soup, there are TCM ingredients in a wide variety of other foods. These include dishes served in broth that are very popular with Taiwanese, such as wine-cooked chicken soup, mutton hotpot, ginger duck with rice wine, and spicy hotpot, and even roast duck, bah kut teh (pork ribs in broth), tea eggs, and braised pork over rice.

The fact is that many people are oblivious to the presence of medicinal herbs in food. “This is because the way that ethnic Chinese consume spices is very different from Indian cuisine. In our cuisine, spices are ‘hidden flavorings,’” says Lu Chun-chin.

Lu Chun-chin, who grew up amidst medicinal herbs and as a child loved to follow his mother around the kitchen, has brought together dietary and TCM ideas to produce a book titled An Encyclopedia of Chinese Spices. With his familiarity with seasonings and his cooking expertise, Lu has become a consultant to many restaurants.

Lu says that Shunchang’s and other pharmacies’ connection with the food and beverage industry had in fact already begun when his father, Lu Shunfu, was in charge. He opens a drawer in the customer counter and pulls out an old notebook inside which are handwritten prescription slips from over the years, for custom-made concoctions based on customer requirements, with the formula kept permanently on hand in the shop. They include a remedy for bronchial problems from a certain village and a prescription to support blood circulation as dictated by the old man next door, as well a neighbor’s recipe for steamed crab, a certain betelnut stand’s secret formula, and directions for an in-house seasoning created by a well-known roast duck restaurant.

Promoting TCM ingredients through their use in food has become the main focus of effort for the siblings of the Lu family. Lu Chun-chin has founded the brand Fubo Bencao and come out with various products including spice pouches, five-spice powder, and Chinese 13-spices mix. At the same time, younger sister Lu Shu-ju handles online marketing for the brand Chiu Shih Chi, which sells instant seasoning pouches for dishes like spicy hotpot and pickled cabbage hotpot. Although traditional TCM pharmacies will never again enjoy the glory days of the past, these mouthwatering products suggest that these shops will never entirely disappear.

Daily Health, an interactive experience center for TCM medicinal herbs in Dadaocheng, displays many rare Chinese medicines in their original forms as well as old-fashioned tools for preparing them, such as the grinders in the inset photo. It’s a feast for the eyes.

The “Herbal Party” events put on by the Dihua Street business community help people rediscover the history and charm of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (courtesy of City Explorer)

Dadaocheng: Bastion of TCM ingredients

When the subject of the TCM materials industry comes up, Taipei’s Dadaocheng area, where there is a cluster of dealers and shops, is sure to be mentioned. On short Dihua Street alone, there are tens of TCM pharmacy businesses in among the vendors of other traditional products such as dried foods, tea, and textiles. The place attracts not only Taiwanese, but also foreign visitors.

How did Dadaocheng become a bastion of the TCM ingredients business? Chen Shih-che, director general of the Dihua Street Shopping District Development Association, tells us about Dihua Street’s past. After the Treaty of Tianjin was signed in 1858, the port of Tamsui was opened to foreign trade. Scottish merchant John Dodd and businessman Li Chunsheng, originally from Xiamen, collaborated to cultivate tea plant seedlings from Fujian in Northern Taiwan, and the resultant tea was processed in Da­dao­cheng and exported from there. As trade increased, given the overlap between tea, TCM medicinal ingredients, dried foods and other products, Dadaocheng gradually became a distribution and sales point for all these goods.

For Taiwan’s TCM ingredients industry, Dadaocheng firms are the most influential leaders. For consumers, the area is a shopping paradise with the most complete selection and freshest products, and also the most high-end goods.

Take Chinese jujubes (Ziziphus jujuba) for example. Besides the ordinary sweet varieties used in stews, there are also varieties with much stronger medicinal properties as well as expensive high-quality jujubes locally grown in Miaoli County. As for cinnamon, besides the ordinary grade products, most large shops also sell high-end Qing­hua cinnamon. “Different growing sites, varieties, and flavors all affect the end product,” explains Chen Shih-che. Dadaocheng offers everything one can imagine.

Walking along Dihua Street with Chen, we learn that the firms there all have something in common: They are nimble, clear-sighted companies that were pioneers in transforming themselves.

This characteristic recalls the development process of this historic street. In the past, each Lunar New Year’s Eve there was naturally some kind of collective grand sales event in Dadaocheng. But in 1996 the Dihua Street New Year Market, combining folk celebrations and marketing, was launched with strong backing from the Taipei City Government, and was an immediate success. From that point, the old neighborhood was brilliantly transformed, and a consensus developed around the preservation of the old buildings and affirmation of the history and culture of this urban area that until then had been in decline.

Various factors prompted businesses there to pull out all the stops to transform themselves. These included their pride in Dadaocheng and a sense of mission to revitalize its traditional industries, the neighborhood’s growing embrace of tourism, a changing consumer market, the emergence of a new successor generation of business owners, support for old shop renovations from the city govern­ment, and innovative energy injected by the “Herbal Party” events organized by the local business community. Besides striving to retain old customers, local businesses have proactively sought out new business opportunities.

As a result, new branding and packaging strategies have emerged. Products often come with user instructions in Japanese, English and Chinese, while smaller package sizes targeted at small families and singles are becoming more widely available. Then there are goods such as instant ingredient pouches for medicinal cuisine, as well as mulled wine spice mixes that are popular among younger people. These have appeared in the wake of continual changes in lifestyles and dietary trends. At the same time, virtually every store has begun to offer online shopping.

Thanks to these new strategies, people have also discovered that as TCM has gone beyond national boundaries, there is a great deal of resonance with other cultures. The commercial opportunities from contemporary lifestyles are also not to be underestimated.

“Those shops that have been able to survive in Da­dao­cheng all have their own unique characteristics and clientele,” says Chen Shih-che. The TCM ingredients industry has been through its ups and downs over the years, but still stands strong today. In the future, it will operate in even more diverse ways to continue to support Taiwanese in their daily lives.

TCM herbal ingredients such as roselle and Chinese hawthorn are frequently used to flavor beverages. (courtesy of City Explorer)

Dadaocheng, known as a place of living history, is where the long-established TCM ingredients industry has transformed itself to find connections to modern people and overseas cultures.