Bulk Herbs and the Power of Decoction

A Post for Practitioners

(but you can read it even if you’re not one)

When people think back to the origin of our medicine, images of people searching the forests and fields for special plants and minerals that could cure pathological conditions is certainly part of the imagery. Those ingredients, broadly referred to as herbs even though many of them are animal parts or minerals, became the cornerstone of the internal medicine components of what would evolve into Chinese Medicine today. Indeed, the use of powerful herbs is not unique to East Asia and not even unique to pre-modern people. Some assessments put over 80% of modern pharmaceuticals have their origins in compounds derived from plants and animals. Searching for balance or counterbalance in the natural world is perhaps one of the most unifying characteristics of human beings across all cultures and all times.

As a contemporary practitioner of Chinese Medicine, I lean heavily on the knowledge of our predecessors. I use their recorded insights as they refined their craft and documented their findings in the literal millennia of case studies and then commentary on those case studies that form the bulk of the classical basis for modern practice. I look to formulations of different herbs that have been tried and found effective in clinical practice nearly every time that I want to help a patient with their different problems and wellness limitations. And when I finally put together the treatment plan for those conditions, I almost always reach to whole plant medicine. In the same way that I want to eat whole foods as close to their form in nature as possible, so too do I want to build remedies that are as close to the natural world as possible. Our bodies are evolved to process and utilize that which it understands, and it struggles to make use of that which is unknown or unrecognizable.

Yet we all know that patient compliance is often a challenge when prescribing herbal medicine. Cooking herbs into medicinal tea can be time-consuming for people and confusing for patients to navigate on their own. Even patients with the time and intention find themselves forgetting to prepare herbs or using methods that don’t yield the most potent solution. So in our pharmacy we decided to cut out the compliance middleman and do the work ourselves. Using filtered and mineralized water, Root & Branch will cook your patient’s herbs for them to make sure they get the most potent brew to help resolve their ailments.

We use electric pressure cookers to decoct herbs in our shop. We have experimented extensively with cook times, temperatures, and water levels to create a process that produces potent extractions. We are able to maintain the volatile components of short boil herbs by condensing them back into the decoction or by using a more traditional “add at the end” method. If you use our decoction services, please specify “add at the end” when building your formula if that is your preference. All of our decoctions leave the shop in sanitized, reusable, tempered-glass jars that keep those decoctions food safe in the refrigerator for as many as 10 days.  But please adhere to the “Best-Buy” date in your patient’s herb packet.

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Talking to Patients about Cooking their Herbs at Home

Some of your patients might want to still cook their herbs at home. I have a few folks who really love the idea of brewing their own remedies, and they enjoy having an intimate connection to the process of their healing. For those people, we designed an easy infographic that lays out how to cook herbs on the stovetop using the traditional, double-boil method. But for a lot of patients, cooking herbs in a pot, especially cooking herbs everyday in a pot, can get cumbersome for even the most motivated of them. So we decided to share our pressure cooker methods too. We’ve reproduced them here as a way to help you talk to them about cooking herbs in a pressure cooker or maybe even trying it yourself:

Formula to Consider:

Dang Shen - root (tonic)
Cang Zhu - root (aromatic)
Fu Ling - rootesque (draining)
Gan Cao - root
Sheng Jiang - rhizome (acrid)
Da Zao - fruit (sweet)
Chen Pi - peel (aromatic)
Jiang Zhi Ban Xia - rhizome
Cao Guo - fruit (aromatic)

1. Determine which of your herbs are going in for the pressure cook stage and which might need to be short boiled

   As a general rule, herbs that are roots, fruits, sticks, or minerals go into the pot for the pressure stage. In particular, herbs that are tonic in nature, especially those that are sweet or slightly cloying definitely go into the pot for the pressure stage. For herbs that are more aromatic in nature, they are likely to be short-boiled at the end of the process. Such herbs might include Bo He (mint), Gui Zhi/Rou Gui (cinnamon), Sha Ren (grains of paradise fruit), or Jing Jie (schizonepeta), especially if you are using them for their ability to cut through turbidity or to expel the exterior.

   We have even taken this process of selection to a more specific level than I would expect from patients. Let’s use the formula to the right to highlight how we would create a decoction for our own patients:

   Herbs for Pressure Stage: Dang Shen, Fu ling, Gan Cao, Sheng Jiang, Da Zao, Ban Xia

   All the herbs listed for pressure stage are herbs that are heavy, dense, tonic, sweet, or are needed to harmonize the actions of the other herbs. These types of herbs can withstand the increased temperature of cooking under pressure and, in our experience, are more deeply extracted when cooked at a higher temperature.

   Herbs for Open-Lid Cooking: Cang Zhu, Chen Pi

   The herbs listed for Open Lid Cooking are herbs that would normally be cooked with the first group if you were doing stove top cooking but in the case of using a pressure cooking device, we have found that there more gentle aromatics are damaged by the added head and while some of their more volatile elements will condense back into the cooking chamber, side-by-side comparisons in our pharmacy show a more potent flavor profile when these herbs are not subjected to the additional heat of a pressure cook. These types of herbs should be set aside from the rest and soaked in just enough hot water to cover them while the first group of herbs is being cooked (see more details about how to do that below). Once the pressure has reduced and safety pin has released, open the pot and add this “open-lid cooking” group of herbs (and the liquid they have been soaking in) to the decoction. Set your cooker to saute, or whatever equivalent setting will get the liquid boiling again, and cook for 10-12 minutes.

   Herbs for True Short-Boil: Cao Guo

   This last group of herbs represents what most experienced herb cooks will recognize as a “short-boil” herb. That is, an herb whose extremely aromatic nature (i.e. high concentration of volatile flavor compounds)is lost with extensive application of heat. In order to preserve the potency of these herbs in a decoction they should be added once all other cooking is done and simmered for no more than 5 minutes. For some of the most aromatic ingredients, I will grind them into a coarse powder and add them to the hot, finished decoction and let the ground herbs steep like tea, with the HEAT TURNED OFF. Once they infuse for 5-8 mintes with no additional heat, I will strain the whole mixture and hot pack into sterile jars.

2. Figure our how much water you need to cook your herbs

   We use a basic calculation as a starting point for all of our decoctions and then make modifications based on the specific formula ingredients:

   Water required = final volume of finished decoction + 20%

   So to put that into context, we cook most of our formulas 7 days at a time, and we send out those 7 days worth of herbs in 7, pint-sized, glass canning jars. So for 7 days of herbs, we send out a total of 14 cups of finished decoction or 3.5 quarts. That means that for our water requirement calculation, we use the final volume of finished decoction (14 cups) + 20% (3 cups) for a total water requirement of 17 cups (a little more than a gallon).

   However, some herbs that might be in a formula could be more voluminous (i.e. Zhu Ru, Shui Niu Jiao, Tong Cao) or more dense and heavy (i.e. mu li, e zhu, dai zhi hi). This change in volume will require an increase or a reduction of water so that you can get a solid extraction but still managing the total liquid so you don’t have gallons to drink. This is where the art of herb cooking comes in and we recommend that as you start down the road of cooking your own herbs (stovetop or pressure cooker), you have a small notebook where you can keep info about the ingredients in a formula, how much water you put into the cooking pot, and how much yield you got in the end. That way you will have data points to use in informing your instincts around right amounts of water or not.

3. Cook the herbs

   Once you know the order of our herb cooking and how much water you are going to use, it’s time to get cooking. Add your pressure cook group to the pot. Put your open-lid group in a bowl near to your cooking station. Do the same with the short-boil group. Pour just enough water over each group of herbs to get them barely submerged (Be conservative here. We want them to start hydrating while the pressure group cooks, but we want most of the water in the cooking pot). Pour the remaining water into your pressure cooker with the pressure cook group of herbs, put on the lid, and set the cook time to 20 minutes of low-pressure cooking.

   Allow the pot to go through its complete cook cycle, and DO NOT vent the steam. Allowing the pot to cool naturally will force any volatile components in the chamber back into the solution and once the safety pin drops you can open the lid to add your soaked open-top group to the pot. Once you have the first two groups in the cook pot, change the setting to saute (or other equivalent setting on non-Instant Pot brand machines that will allow the contents to come to a boil) and cook at a very low boil for 15-20 minutes.

   Once you have finished cooking the second group, turn the heat off and add the short-boil group to your pot. Allow the short boil to steep for 5-8 minutes.

4. Strain and drink

   Strain out all the herbs you’ve used and compost them. Divide your finished decoction into the appropriate number of doses per your prescription, and store them in the fridge.

Important Points about Decoction Service at R&B

 1.) Because of food safety concerns with shipping, decoction Service is only available for patients who are able to come to the pharmacy in person to pick up their cooked herbs.

2.) R&B cooks  1 day’s herbs (usually also one bag) into one (1), 16oz jar of finished decoction. Dosing therefore is usually 1/2 jar (8oz) per dose, 2 times per day. Exact volume will vary depending on the herbs in a formula and the number of days being cooked. IF YOU NEED EXACT VOLUMES FOR YOUR PATIENTS, you may want your patients to cook their herbs at home.

3.) In order to guarantee that decoctions are fresh and safe to consume, R&B CANNOT decoct more than 7 days worth of herbs at a time (i.e. no more than seven jars of decoction at a time).

4.) From the time payment is received for herbs, it usually takes 2.5 hours for the herbs to be cooked, cooled, and packaged. Please advise your patients accordingly. They will receive a text notification that there herbs are ready for pick-up.

5.) Decoction service costs $5.00 which pays for a portion of the jars and carriers, as well as the labor to wash, sanitize, and restock the equipment