Ginseng

Ginseng is a divine and magical herb. It can bring critically ill patients back to life, prolong life, boost immunity, has anti-fatigue and many more health functions.

There are several folk tales relating to the origin of the name of ginseng.

One story says that a long time ago, a day in early winter, two brothers were going into the mountains to hunt. While climbing the mountain, they fought and killed many wild animals. They were very happy and decided to continue hunt. Suddenly a heavy snow started, covered the mountains rapidly and blocked their way home completely. They had to hide in a cave. In addition to eating wild animals, they also dug some wild plants next to the cave to feed their hunger. One day, they found something that looked like a human and tasted sweet, so they dug a lot to eat when they were hungry. Soon, they found out that, although eating this kind of food made them strong, eating too much caused nosebleeds and headaches. Therefore, they ate only a little bit of the roots every day, not daring to eat too many. Very fast, the winter turned to spring, the ice and snow melted, and the brothers carried a lot of prey and went home happily. They returned to the village alive, strong and healthy. People thought it was very strange, so the two brothers briefly introduced their experiences and showed the villagers the roots they brought back. The villagers saw the root looked like a man, but nobody knew what it was. An elder smiled and said that it looked like a man, and the two brothers were able to survive thanks to its health functions, so we called it “Ren Shen” meaning “Human Life”, until now.
Later, foreigners changed "Ren Shen" to "Ginseng" following it’s Latin name Panax ginseng. Panax being a combination of the Greek words pan and axos, Pan meaning “all”, axos meaning “cure”. So Panax Ginseng means “cure for all diseases.

There are different benefits and contraindications. Please follow our next article to learn more.