Tonic beverages - new ideas for the development of plant-based beverages

Plant beverages refer to beverage products made from plants or Plant Extracts, fermented or unfermented, and processed into beverage products. Plant beverages include cereal beverages, cocoa beverages, herbal/native beverages, edible mushroom beverages, algae beverages, etc. The plant beverages described in this article are limited to herbal beverages.

01 Origin of plant-based beverages

According to the health theory of "treating the untreated", the ancient Chinese diet with health care effects - medicinal food - has already appeared. Taking medicinal food is often called "food therapy". More than 2,000 years ago, the "Rites of Zhou" already included the content of food therapy. The recipes for these meals were first found in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine and the Classic of the Mountains and Seas. With the deepening of the ancient understanding of health care, medicinal food has been scattered in the Han dynasty famous doctor Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Typhoid and Miscellaneous Diseases", "Jin Kui", written in the Eastern Han period, "Shennong Ben Cao Jing" and the subsequent dynasties of Chinese medical writings. Since some of the herbs in medicinal food are decocted into soup and taken in the form of soup, the soup made from the herbs in these medicinal food becomes the prototype of what we call plant-based beverages, and is also a treasure trove worthy of attention in the development of plant-based beverages today.

02 Classification of tonic plants of medicinal and food origin

According to TCM theory, tonic herbs can be broadly classified into 4 major categories.
Qi tonic, blood tonic, Yin tonic and Yang tonic, which are usually used in medicinal dishes.
Qi tonic class: Ginseng, Radix Codonopsis Pilosulae, Radix Astragali, Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Fructus Jujubae☆, Rhizoma Polygonati☆, Lentils☆, Glycyrrhiza Uralensis☆.
Blood tonic: Radix Rehmanniae, Radix Polygoni, Radix Paeoniae Alba, Radix Angelicae Sinensis, Semen Longan ☆, Fructus Lycii ☆, Semen Mulberry ☆.
Yin tonic: Salvia miltiorrhiza, asparagus, maitake, dendrobium, lily of the valley ☆, yu zhu ☆, lady's mantle, mullein, mullein.
Yang tonic: Cistanches, locking yang, bacopa monniera, pecan ☆, puzzle nut, Epimedium, Eucommia, sequestra, bone tonic, cuscuta, lotus seed ☆, Cornu Cervi Pantotrichum, salvia, bone fructus, hyssop.
Note: All the herbs that hit ☆ have been included in the list of dual-use medicine and food by the Ministry of Health, the rest are classified in the list of items that can be used for health food released by the Ministry of Health, and ginseng (artificially cultivated) has been classified as new resource food.

03 Thirst-quenching, delicious and functional at the same time

Like many other beverages, tonic beverages must have three consumer requirements: quenching thirst, tasting good and having certain beneficial functions for human body. But if it is neither thirst quenching nor tasty, it will not go far in the market. A popular beverage should be popular in terms of taste, in addition to its market selling point. Therefore, how to allocate tonic drinks, so that it is not like "medicine" but like a delicious drink, which is also a topic in front of our beverage research and development personnel.

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2022-11-1

Shaanxi Huike Botanical Development Co., Ltd.