Fish mint, “the herb that smells of fish”

Yu Xing Cao reads “the herb that smells of fish”: crush a fresh leaf and you have the name, which is also the best identity test for the plant. Houttuynia (Houttuynia cordata) is a perennial with heart-shaped leaves, often purple underneath, that likes the damp shade of stream banks. Throughout south-west China, in Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan, its crunchy white rhizomes are eaten raw in spicy salads under the name Zhe Er Gen, and in 2002 China listed it among the substances that are both food and pharmacopoeia plant. Its dried aerial parts, harvested in summer, are used.

Cooling by opening

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, fish mint is slightly cold and pungent in flavour. One would expect bitterness, the usual flavour of plants that clear Heat; this one is pungent, that is dispersing and mobile, and it opens what is stuck while it cools. It enters only the Lung, where tradition credits it with clearing Heat, bringing Qi back down and dissolving the Phlegm that Heat has thickened. The Ben Cao Jing Shu makes it the essential substance when Phlegm and Heat encumber the Lung.

From top to bottom, and a plant to infuse

The texts also recognise an action on the Bladder: according to tradition, the Lung is the master of the Water passages, and what opens above flows out below. What acts in this plant is volatile: its essential oils, which carry the smell and the pungency, leave with the steam. It is therefore simply steeped in boiling water, covered, or added in the very last minutes of a decoction. It pairs readily with platycodon root, which opens the Lung and guides towards the chest.

Key benefits

Heat cleared & freshness

Pungent and slightly cold, fish mint clears Lung Heat by dispersing rather than weighing down.

Urinary comfort

Through the Bladder, the lower side of the same logic, it helps water flow and supports urinary comfort.

Phlegm dissolved

It brings Lung Qi back down and thins the mucus that Heat has thickened.