How to tell real medicinal herbs from fake ones? A few practical methods

For consumers, the most commonly encountered Chinese medicinal herbs are precious ones like ginseng and bird's nest.

1

Bird's nest strand-pulling method: Bird's nest is an excellent tonic. High-quality bird's nest is arranged in strands, turns silver-white when soaked in water, is crystal-clear and translucent, soft in body, elastic, and stretches when pulled.

2

Ejiao slapping method: Ejiao is made by boiling and processing donkey hide. To identify it, hold the glue block in your hand and slap it hard against the tabletop; the block will break brittlely into pieces, and the broken pieces are brown and semi-translucent with no foreign matter; if it slaps soft without breaking, it is suspected to be a counterfeit.

3

Ginseng taste method: Ginseng has a very distinctive taste; the genuine product tastes bitter with a sweet note, while one with a numbing, spicy, sour or astringent taste is a counterfeit.

4

Notoginseng blood-dissolving method: Put notoginseng powder into a small amount of pig blood, and you will find the pig blood turning into a watery state; this is mainly due to the hemolytic effect of the saponin components contained in notoginseng.

5

Pearl burst method: After burning a genuine pearl with fire, it can be seen to break apart in layers and flakes, glittering and flashing; if it turns into granules or a scorched mess after burning, it is a counterfeit.

6

Gastrodia steaming method: When identifying gastrodia, besides paying attention to the "parrot beak" (stem base scar), "ring segments" (fibrous root scars) and "concave navel", you can steam the gastrodia over water; if it smells of a rank odor (horse urine), it is genuine.

7

Cow bezoar nail-coating method: Take a little powder, moisten it with water, and apply it to a fingernail; if it is natural cow bezoar, its yellow color will not fade for a long time.

8

Bear bile spiraling method: Take a little bile kernel and put it into a cup filled with clear water; if the bile kernel is seen spiraling and sinking in the cup and dissolving into a yellow line, it is genuine; the bile of other animals does not show this spiraling behavior.