White Chrysanthemum Wine: A Timeless Elixir for Health and Vitality

"February peach blossoms, September chrysanthemums. Roots in the soil, each waits for its own time." With this elegant wine poem about chrysanthemums, let us introduce the health benefits of white chrysanthemum wine.

[Ingredients]

White chrysanthemum flowers 150 grams, white wine 1500 milliliters.

[Preparation Method]

Place the chrysanthemum flowers in a clean gauze bag. Tie the bag tightly and place it in a container with the white wine. Seal and soak for one day.

[Efficacy]

White chrysanthemum wine has the effect of clearing the liver and brightening the eyes, dispelling wind and detoxifying. It is suitable for symptoms such as long-lasting headache, intermittent blurry vision, dry and falling hair, and a sense of unease in the chest.

White chrysanthemum is also known as sweet chrysanthemum, Hangzhou chrysanthemum, Hangzhou white chrysanthemum, tea chrysanthemum, and medicinal chrysanthemum. It has the effective functions of dispelling wind-heat, calming the liver and brightening the eyes, and clearing heat and detoxifying. White chrysanthemum is used to treat wind-heat colds, fever with headache, red and blurry vision, insufficient liver and kidney, dark and blurry vision, dizziness, and wind invasion.

[Dosage]

Take 15 to 20 milliliters each time, once in the morning and once in the evening.

[Historical Origins]

According to Liu Xin's "Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital" in the Western Han Dynasty, "chrysanthemum flowers are harvested during the blooming season, mixed with millet and brewed. It is not until the ninth day of the ninth lunar month of the following year that it is ready to drink. Therefore, it is called chrysanthemum wine. Drinking it can lighten the body and prolong life." In the Ming Dynasty, chrysanthemum wine was made by "boiling the juice of sweet chrysanthemum flowers and brewing it with yeast and rice. It is also good to add herbs such as Rehmannia and Angelica." In the Qing Dynasty, white wine was used to soak the medicinal materials, and later the method of distilling with swallows was adopted. Therefore, the chrysanthemum wine brewed since the Qing Dynasty is called "chrysanthemum white wine."

During the Song Dynasty, the famous poet Lu You fell ill and drank chrysanthemum wine, and as a result, his illness was cured. He praised in his poem, "The chrysanthemum thrives in the frost, unlike ordinary grass. I, who drank the chrysanthemum wine, recovered from illness. How can I be the same as the chrysanthemum, so I can stay young and not wither."

In "Compendium of Materia Medica" Volume Fifteen, the first listed medicinal material is "chrysanthemum". Li Shizhen mentioned the consumption of sweet chrysanthemum and white chrysanthemum, and then referred to the use of white chrysanthemum wine, showing that he attached great importance to the dietary therapy of chrysanthemum.

From the records in "Compendium of Materia Medica", we can see that: first, the white chrysanthemum wine mentioned in "Compendium of Materia Medica" has been widely quoted and circulated in later materia medica. Second, the method used to prepare chrysanthemum wine in "Compendium of Materia Medica" is to directly soak the chrysanthemum flowers in wine. This is much simpler than the method used in the Western Han Dynasty, which was to brew the chrysanthemum flowers with millet to make fermented liquor. Third, Li Shizhen recommended the use of crushed chrysanthemum seedlings when drinking white chrysanthemum medicinal wine, because the function of chrysanthemum seedlings is similar to that of chrysanthemum flowers. The combination of the two is to enhance the therapeutic effect.