The ingredients of Qiongyugao include ginseng, di huang (rehmannia), bai fu ling (poria), and honey. Qiongyugao of Qiongyugao.com is manufactured with carefully selected materials. Agricultural chemicals are known to make agricultural products look great. For this reason, farmers do not give up the use of agricultural chemicals even for crops that do not need agricultural chemicals. They believe that good-looking agricultural products are sold well. Thus, like necessary evils, agricultural chemicals always come with agricultural products in their production and distribution. We believe that the absence of agricultural chemicals is most important for the effect of medial materials, and purchase the materials of Qiongyugao through careful screening.

In order to approach the efficacy of a medicine from the viewpoint of Oriental medicine, we should know gi. For example, today’s Western approach concludes that venison has the same effect as that of antler, but it is a mistaken idea out of the assumption that we can expect the same effect from materials with the same chemical formula. We have the most advanced know-how in screening di huang and processing Korean ginseng, fu ling, and honey.

You may attain the best result when you take Qiongyugao properly during the given period. Qiongyugao of Qiongyugao.com is highly reliable. It is a tonic medicine prepared using the best know-how concerning the problem of agricultural chemicals in materials and the handling of products in the distribution and storage such as soaking in wine and keeping from metal things.

Home-produced honey-High-quality honey burns like protein without leaving sugar. However, it is almost impossible to find home-produced honey without containing sugar at all. It is because honeybees have the nature of stealing honey from neighbor beehives and, therefore, they may steal from beehives containing sugar. Above all, Korean wild honey has high medical efficacy.

Korean natural fu ling is collected by a small number of simmanis (ginseng diggers), but due to consumers’ indifference and the import of fu ling from China and North Korea, Korean wild fu ling is used rarely and its price is also over 10 times higher. Fu ling had been cultivated in Gyeongsangbuk-do for several years, but now no longer because of failure in collection, distribution and sales. Currently, an agricultural research institute in Jolla-do has cultivated fu ling since 2007 and is harvesting 2-year-old one experimentally. Fu ling from North Korea is wild, but that from China is artificially cultivated in large scale. Thus, Chinese fu ling is extremely cheap. Its consumer price is around 3,000 won per 600g, but home-produced wide fu ling is over 30,000 won. Naturally, all home-produced fu ling available today is wild. If consumers love wild fu ling and consume it, though 10 times more expensive, fu ling may be farmed in Korea as well. Because of its price, however, most of fu ling consumed as a material of Qiongyugao and cosmetics is a Chinese product. One who digs medical herbs in the mountains is called ‘simmani,’ but those who collect fu ling dig only fu ling. We use home-produced wild fu ling purchased from the fu ling diggers. In particular, we use boksin, which is considered to have neuropsychiatric efficacy.

Korean di huang - Di huang, a medical herb difficult to store, is produced during November and December. Home-produced di huang is very different in size from Chinese one. Even Chinese people doubt the safety of Chinese-produced food and it is quite simple to import Chinese products to Korea. In this situation, it is quite easy to introduce Chinese di huang to Korea. Currently, di huang is cultivated by many farmers in Jolla-do, Gyeongsang-do and Chungcheong-do, and in fact, among the four major ingredients of Qiongyugao, di huang is considered to show the highest home production rate. Qiongyugao.com uses di huang grown and harvested in northern Gyeongsangbuk-do, paying a much higher price than di huang merchants.

Punggi ginseng - Korean ginseng to be used for Qiongyugao is first processed into red ginseng through four days’ steaming, a day’s ripening, and another day’s steaming. Thus, we do not need to use red ginseng. All Korean ginsengs used in Qiongyugao have been approved by a certificate authority. They are all Korean-produced 6-year-old roots of 1st grade, which were dried under sunlight.

“I cannot take Korean ginseng because I have a fever. Would you please make Qiongyugao with red ginseng? Anyway it would be better to the body because it is more expensive. Why don’t you try?”

However, we do not need to use red ginseng. It is because Korean ginseng turns into red ginseng in the manufacturing process of Qiongyugao, which steams four days, ripens a day, and steams another day.”

If Korean ginseng is steamed half a day in a red ginseng machine, it becomes red ginseng. In the same principle of making red ginseng, Qiongyugao is steamed at around 90~100℃ for 3 days and another day after a day’s break, so a total of 96 hours. As Korean ginseng goes through the stage of steaming, it comes to have the efficacy of red ginseng. Red ginseng is made by 3~4 hours’ steaming at over 90℃, 12~24 hours’ ripening, and drying. In the past, the drying process took 2~3 months, but these days short freeze-drying and vacuum packaging are used. If Korean ginseng is heated, starch in the ginseng turns sticky, and because of this, it took longer to dry red ginseng than to dry Korean ginseng in the past.

If Korean ginseng is decocted or boiled, its color turns light yellow. Through steaming, the color becomes close to red and then dark red that is almost black. Thus, in the process of manufacturing Qiongyugao, Korean ginseng is changed to red ginseng. The reason that red ginseng is used in Qiongyugao is that red ginseng may reduce the side effects of Korean ginseng, which comes from the greenish nature of ginseng, and thus consumers may take Qiongyugao as a tonic medicine without worries. However, there is no example in Dong-eui-bo-gam or Chinese medical books that red ginseng was used in Qiongyugao. This is probably because ginseng is turned into red ginseng in the process of making Qiongyugao.

Second, the content of Korean ginseng in Qiongyugao is only 5%. Whether it is red ginseng or Korean ginseng, if the content is 5%, it is not the most important ingredient. As presented below, according to Dong-eui-bo-gam, the content of Korean ginseng is merely 5%. (Some makers raise the content of honey to 50% or 60% to suit the taste of consumers (children). If it is for sweetness, however, chocolate may be better than Qiongyugao. We cannot expect the same effect when the contents have been changed.)

Mind

Soul

Spirit

Boiled honey heart

A common story that we have heard in childhood is that di huang (mind) has the nature of going down to the ground, fu ling (soul) wandering in the air, and Korean ginseng (spirit) going up to the sky. The contents of Qiongyugao are determined according to these natures. These ingredients are harmonized by honey (blood), and honey must be home-produced. Because Korean land is infertile and the climate is changeable, it is not good for producing crops but is very advantageous to the production of medicine. The reason can be inferred from the saying that loach roasted alive in sesame oil is tonic to the body. That is, animals and plants growing where the weather is changeable all the year around and day and night become good medicines. Let me give another example, apple. Apple can avoid fruit drop when temperature difference between day and night is over 10℃, and the larger temperature difference is the sweeter the apple is. In other words, severe changes produce medicines and change itself is medicine.

Mind (di huang) soul (fu ling) spirit (Korean ginseng) blood (honey)
essence/liquid + ghost/soul + energy + honey
Mind + soul + spirit + boiled honey heart

The contents of Qiongyugao (according to Dong-eui-bo-gam)

Boiled honey 33% (32.79)

Korean ginseng 5% (4.92)

Fu ling 10% (9.84)

Di huang 52% (52.46)

※ If the contents above are changed, at least the product is not Qiongyugao with mysterious efficacy as mentioned in Dong-eui-bo-gam.

Red ginseng does not need to be used in Qiongyugao. The reason is, first, that, as explained above with regard to the origin of Qiongyugao, red ginseng is not mentioned in any books from the Sung Dynasty in the 10th century to the mid Chosun Dynasty including Dong-eui-bo-gam. Traditional Qiongyugao used ginseng not red ginseng. Second, the process of making red ginseng shows that red ginseng is not necessary in Qiongyugao.

Red ginseng making process

It may take around 2-3 months to make red ginseng by an orthodox method, but the steaming time, which is the key process, is not so long, and red ginseng made at home has a very short drying process for storage and distribution.

Red ginseng making process: 1. Steaming (softening) → 2. Ripening → 3. Drying

Steaming at 95~98℃ for 3~4 hours

1st drying at around 55℃ for 24 hours

2nd drying under sunlight for around 2-3 months

※ It is not true that the elements of red ginseng are lost at over 90℃, and at temperature below that ginseng is not steamed properly. That the elements of Korean ginseng volatilize and are lost in long steaming is a false idea spread by some merchants. A misconception commonly used in marketing is that the more expensive the better.

Based on Dong-eui-bo-gam, Qiongyugao has been considered a so-called panacea and a tonic medicine harmless and beneficial to everybody. In any part of Dong-eui-bo-gam, however, the addition of antler is not mentioned. Thus, it is not desirable to add a new material without any precedent case, assuming that the addition of an expensive material may improve the effect.

Qiongyugao should use only herbs, but antler is an animal’s blood. Why only herbs? The contention that Qiongyugao is free from side effects for everybody is based on the fact that Qiongyugao is a tonic medicine made not of animals but of herbs. It is generally true that animal medicines are stronger than herbs. However, a strong medicine often causes side effects. Although it is a medicine, it may have a problem in long-term taking.

Because the ingredients of Qiongyugao are herbs, the effect of which is relatively mild, Qiongyugao has few side effects even with long-term taking. Simply speaking, if people eat meat as they eat rice, they will have many health problems. Qiongyugao is made of herbs like rice, so it cleanses and tones up the blood.

In addition, herbal processes such as steaming, boiling, roasting, decocting, drying and soaking were developed by our ancestors who mastered the theory of yin-yang and the five agents. Who can change them arbitrarily today? In addition, the incompatibility and compatibility of foods are our ancestors’ wisdom and common sense that have been practiced in everyday life by women. Fusion foods are a temporary trend riding on globalization, which is for the tongue troupe who seeks the pleasure of their tongue. They do not have a traditional base.

For example, a medicine called 10-jeon Daebotang is popular in herbal medicine shops. These days, however, there are 20-jeon Daebotang with 10 additional ingredients, and even 30-jeon Daebotang is imported as a tonic medicine from China. Such reckless fusions for the pleasure of tongue and profits must be stopped, and consumers should be prudent in choosing such products.