A story of transmission, of plants and of balance.
The calabash tree bears a fruit that is hollowed out and left to dry: it then becomes a light, sturdy container. Travelling Chinese physicians carried their pills and their herbs in it, from one village to the next. That is where our name comes from.
What was then a herbalist's shop in the 13th arrondissement of Paris has become Laboratoire Calebasse, with the same direction: making the Chinese pharmacopoeia accessible without giving up anything of what it demands.
Two generations, three stages, one same intent: to preserve the richness of an ancient body of knowledge and give it a fair place in the world of today.
LIU Shao Hua, a gynaecologist and practitioner of Chinese medicine, founded « À la Calebasse Verte » in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. The point was not to create a brand, but to practise, to pass on, and to make the plants and the knowledge of the Chinese pharmacopoeia genuinely available in France.
Her son, WU Ruosi, carried the story forward and developed Laboratoire Calebasse. A doctor of pharmacy and a practitioner of Chinese medicine, he brings two complementary readings into dialogue: tradition, which gives meaning, and contemporary science, which makes it possible to study, to test and to refine. That is where the word « Laboratoire » in our name comes from.
Herbal teas, plants, food supplements and traditional formulas: Calebasse now develops several ways of keeping this knowledge alive, while staying rooted in its historic Parisian home, where advice and closeness keep an essential place.
They come from the Chinese tradition, but they are not fixed formulas: they still shape the way we advise, the way we research and the way we formulate.
The heart before the technique: this is the principle LIU Shao Hua has carried since 1997 and passed on to the whole team. To advise with as much heart as knowledge, and to put your health before any other consideration.
The Chinese tradition gives a central place to maintaining balance day by day. That idea guides our approach to wellbeing today: supporting you before imbalances take up too much room.
Research can always go deeper; a good formula, on the other hand, should not be complex for the sake of it. We look for the combinations, the proportions and the preparations that make sense, then take away what is superfluous.
It is the depth of this catalogue, more than anything else, that explains why practitioners and private customers have trusted us, from Paris to the whole of France.
Acupuncturists, naturopaths, integrative doctors: our partner practitioners work all over France and choose Calebasse for the reliability of our formulas, the purity of our ingredients and the precision of our approach.
Understanding a plant also means knowing where it comes from, how it was prepared and what it becomes before it enters a formula.
Go back to the source, respect the craft, control every step.
For years, our work has not stopped at picking an ingredient off a technical sheet. We take an interest in the regions of origin, the botanical species, the preparation methods and the manufacturing conditions.
This requirement links two worlds we refuse to set against each other: the knowledge accumulated by the Chinese pharmacopoeia, and modern means of identification, testing and production.
Laboratoire Calebasse has grown, but its story stays attached to one place: our herbalist's shop at 15 rue de la Vistule, in Paris.
The shop carries on what was already at the heart of the project in 1997: keeping direct contact with people, taking the time to advise, and keeping the Chinese pharmacopoeia alive as something other than a collection of ingredients.
A few kilometres away, our laboratory continues the same work in another form: selecting, preparing, formulating and producing with the same attention to the plants and to how they fit together.
Calebasse does not try to set tradition against modernity. Our work is rather to understand what is precious in tradition, to examine it with the tools of today, and to pass it on in forms suited to contemporary life, without losing the meaning along the way.
A regular letter, and three places to follow us day to day.
The Calebasse letter