Cangnan's Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry Gets Trendy

Peach gum and snow swallow beauty fresh milk, heat-clearing bitter gourd lemon tea, golden chrysanthemum herbal fresh milk... On June 23rd, at Changshenglao TCM(Triaditional Chinese Medicine) milk tea shop, groups of young people stopped by to either try the new flavors or take photos to check in. With youthful and retro packaging, and ingredients like dried tangerine peel, yellow essence, and peach gum that are "food and medicine of the same source", a new trend of Chinese-style health tea drinks has swept through the county town of Cangnan, Wenzhou.

TCM and tea are both among the top ten historical classic industries in Zhejiang and are also traditional industries of the mountainous county of Cangnan. Due to the lack of brand recognition, Cangnan was once trapped in an inefficient development model of selling medicinal materials and green tea, with weak bargaining power, and was "harvested like leeks" year after year. How to integrate into the lifestyle of modern young people and increase the added value of products? In recent years, Cangnan has taken the TCM industry as the main axis to start a model of integrated development, innovating and developing trendy derivative products such as health tea drinks, big health foods, and TCM cosmetics, promoting the inheritance and innovation of historical classic industries.

Cangnan has many local specialties such as Rouyuan, Qiaodun mooncakes, and fish cakes, and also has national-level golden cards like the hometown of the four seasons of pomelos and the hometown of seaweed in China. Can the food elements be integrated to develop TCM big health foods? Under the matchmaking of the Cangnan County Government, Changshenglao has jointly developed Jiuzhi yellow essence mooncakes with Dingyuanxing mooncakes, yellow essence Rouyuan with Rouyuan production enterprises, and TCM health zongzi with Wenzhou Medical University. "They are all sold out", said Lin Enhui, adding that the annual sales of yellow essence big health products alone exceeded 6 million yuan. Not only Changshenglao, but also the TCM enterprises in Cangnan have developed more than 100 types of big health products, driving employment for more than 3,000 people.

On the basis of product innovation, Cangnan is committed to the upgrading of the entire industrial chain and creating a highland for the development of TCM. Since 2023, Cangnan has established an industrial alliance of TCM manufacturing and food service industry, and built a TCM health industry complex, successively creating a provincial-level comprehensive pilot zone for grassroots health and a pilot county for comprehensive reform of TCM. At present, Cangnan has more than 100 TCM production enterprises, more than 300 sales enterprises, and the annual output value of the TCM industry exceeds 5 billion yuan.(ZhongXin)