What is Pao Zhi?
What separates Huang Qin and Huang Qin (Jiu)? If you’ve had these questions in the past, this article is for you!
As Pao Zhi is “a distinctive and uniquely developed feature of Chinese herbal medicine.” It includes a variety of methods used to process herbs before usage. The effects of Pao Zhi vary by item and process – Pao Zhi can be used to:
Effects Of Pao Zhi
(1): Enhance the effect of ingredients and improve efficacy of herbs
(2): Reduce or eliminate the toxicity or side effects of herbs and ensure safety
(3): Expand the scope of its an herb’s applications
(4): Facilitate more stable storage
(5): Purify the extract to ensure quality
(6): To correct odor and taste for ease of consumption
(7): Guide herbs into specific channels to facilitate targeted effects
Pao Zhi is an essential part of many Chinese Herb production processes, and as such there is a wide variety of Pao Zhi herbs available.The specific processing for each herb is based on a mixture of traditional knowledge, extensive chemical research, and on the standards of the Chinese Pharmacopeia.
In Chinese, Pao Zhi is usually a prefix to the names of herbs (example: Mi Zhi Gan Cao is the honey-treated version of Gan Cao). However, in English, Pao Zhi is usually a suffix to the names of herbs. This is because sorting alphabetically by the name of the herb rather than sorting by the Pao Zhi naturally groups multiple versions of the same herb together.
Some of the most common Pao Zhi methods are listed in the table below.
| Name | Chinese | Processing Method |
| Sheng | 生 | Unprocessed |
| Zhi | 炙 | Cook |
| Yan Zhi | 盐炙 | Cook With Salt |
| Jiu Zhi | 酒炙 | Cook in Wine |
| Cu Zhi | 醋炙 | Cook in Vinegar |
| Jiang Zhi | 姜炙 | Cook with Ginger |
| Chao | 炒 | Stir-Fry |
| Fu Chao | 麩炒 | Stir-Fry with Wheat |
| Duan | 煅 | Calcinate (heat to high temperature) |
| Jiao | 焦 | Burn |
| Tan | 炭 | Carbonize |
| Chan | 燀 | Boil |
Note: Sometimes “Zhi” is omitted from the names of herbs; for example, “Huang Qi (Mi Zhi)” is often known as “Huang Qi (Mi)”. Conversely, sometimes “Mi” is omitted from the names of herbs; for example “Gan Cao (Mi)” is often known as “Zhi Can Cao”.
This is not a complete list of Pao Zhi processes by any means. Pao Zhi can have distinctive effects on the benefits and usage of a particular herb, so it’s important to understand the usages of each version.
For Example: Gan Cao is a neutral temperature herb, but turns into a warm herb when processed into Gan Cao (Mi). We use Pao Zhi with many herbs for our DitDa Jow and Iron Palm kits. Toxic herbs like Cao Wu and Chuan Wu utilize the principle of Pao Zhi to remove toxicity but still have the healing constituents and alkaloids.
In Conclusion
Knowing the importance of Pao Zhi and that your supplier of herbal formulas is acquainted with the process is valuable knowledge when deciding on who to order from, this insures you are receiving a quality product that will give you the best and safest results.