当归
Dong Quai
Dang Gui
The Min County variety has a reputation all of its own. Cool, high mountain slopes seem to suit it.
Traditional home: Min County, Gansu
Our herbs
What's Special About DaoDi Herbs?
Every bottle we make starts in a field somewhere. Which field, it turns out, matters a lot. Two herbs with the same name can be wildly different depending on the soil, the weather and when somebody got round to picking them. DaoDi is the old Chinese idea that every herb has a proper home, and it's how we choose ours.
Geo-authenticNever sulphur-treatedTraced to the fieldSGS lab tested
The idea
What does DaoDi mean?
There's no neat English word for it, so let's take the two characters one at a time. Dao (道) originally meant the old districts of the Chinese empire. Think provinces. Di (地) is the earth itself, the soil and the lie of the land.
Put them together and you get something like 'geo-authentic'. A herb grown in the region it's always been grown in, in the conditions that earned it a reputation in the first place. Champagne has to come from Champagne. Same sort of thinking, only a couple of thousand years older.
It goes right back to the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, the Divine Farmer's classic of herbs. The book reckoned a herb grown in its right place and picked at its right time is at its very best. China's size helps here. You've got steamy subtropics at one end and proper frozen winters at the other, so the old herbalists made notes. This herb from here, that one from there.
Famous homes
Some herbs and their traditional homes
A few of the best-known examples. In China some herbs are still named after the place they come from.
黄芪
Astragalus
Huang Qi
The best is said to grow in the dry northern hills, where the roots come up long and sweet.
Traditional home: Shanxi and Inner Mongolia
三七
Notoginseng
San Qi
So tied to one corner of Yunnan that Wenshan proudly calls itself San Qi's hometown.
Traditional home: Wenshan, Yunnan
枸杞子
Goji Berry
Gou Qi Zi
Ningxia goji is the one everybody wants. Long sunny days and the Yellow River do the rest.
Traditional home: Ningxia
地黄
Rehmannia
Di Huang
One of the famous Four Huai Herbs from the old Huaiqing district. Chinese yam is another.
Traditional home: Jiaozuo, Henan
川芎
Chuanxiong
Chuan Xiong
The 'Chuan' bit is short for Sichuan. A herb that tells you where it's from, handily.
Traditional home: Sichuan
人参
Ginseng
Ren Shen
The Changbai Mountains, up on the border with North Korea, are classic ginseng country.
Traditional home: Jilin
白芍
White Peony Root
Bai Shao
Bozhou has been a herb market town for centuries, and its peony root is well known across China.
Traditional home: Bozhou, Anhui
These are the homes the tradition names. Climate and soil shift over time, so where a region changes we'll go to another area that meets the same standard rather than settle for a poorer crop.
Spotting the difference
DaoDi herbs vs look-alikes
| Compare | Genuine DaoDi | Counterfeit material |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Priced like the real thing, because it is | Suspiciously cheap |
| Where it's grown | The region on the label | Somewhere else entirely |
| The plant | The right species | Often a close cousin that looks the part |
| Drying | Dried naturally | Frequently sulphur-treated to look brighter |
| Traceability | Batch traced back to the field | Nobody's quite sure |
Why it matters
Sulphur: twice the shine, half the herb
Because DaoDi herbs fetch a premium, there's money in passing ordinary ones off as the real thing. Bupleurum (Chai Hu) and Pinellia (Ban Xia) have been hit especially hard. Demand's gone up, genuine harvests have gone down, and look-alikes have filled the gap.
Sulphur is the easiest one to show you. It's used to make dried herbs look paler and keep longer. When White Peony root (Bai Shao) is sulphur-treated it forms a new compound, paeoniflorin sulfonate, and in one comparison the main active constituent dropped by more than half. Brighter on the shelf, half as much herb. Not a great swap, is it?
Our approach
How we keep it honest
No magic to it. Just doing things the slow way, with growers we've known for years.
- 1Right herb, right placeEach herb comes from its traditional home, or from somewhere that meets the same standard if conditions there change.
- 2No sulphurEvery herb we use is 100% natural and never sulphur-treated. Full stop.
- 3Traced to the fieldLong relationships with the same growers mean we can tell you where a batch came from, not just promise it's good.
- 4Tested properlyOur formulas are made to GMP standards and SGS check them in the lab.
What does DaoDi actually mean?
Roughly 'geo-authentic'. A herb grown in the place it's traditionally grown, the way it's always been done there.
Does it really matter where a herb is grown?
We think so, yeah. The ground it grew in and the day it got picked both change what's inside. Same name on the label, very different herb in the jar.
How can I tell if a herb's been sulphur-treated?
Not easily, frankly. A suspiciously bright, pale look is one clue, and sometimes there's a sharp whiff. Honestly though? Buy from people who'll tell you where it came from.
Are all Aura herbs DaoDi?
Every herb we use is sourced on the DaoDi principle and none of them are sulphur-treated. That goes for the tablets and the teas.
Where can I see what's in each formula?
Our herb glossary lists every herb in the range and which formulas it turns up in.
Got a question about a batch?
Email info@auranutrition.com and we'll happily dig into it for you.
Learn with Aura
Read more
Questions about where something came from? Email info@auranutrition.com, we're always happy to talk herbs.