Chapter 220 - Ginseng (2/2)
Waiting around another 30 minutes, Wang Ming heard someone knock on his door. A person who he assumed worked for Meng Hao's father was sweaty, huffing and puffing in front of his house. Even though he had told Meng Hao that he needs it as soon as possible, he couldn't help but feel sorry for the man.
After catching his breath, the man who looked a few years older than Wang Ming said. ”Hello sir, my name is Hung Ba. I'm the manager of Meng's Herbs, on the order of Young Master Meng, I'm here to deliver 2 kgs of ginseng. Are you Wang Ming?”
”That's me.” Wang Ming said. Hung Ba didn't confirm Wang Ming's identity or anything, before he could even do anything. Hung Ba put the box that contained the ginseng in Wang Ming's hands and ran off, like he was afraid that Wang Ming would fault him for something.
Looking inside the box, Wang Ming saw there was indeed ginseng inside. Seeing him run off like that made Wang Ming think that maybe he had done something wrong, that's why he ran. But the ginseng looked normal.
Having the ginseng in hand made Wang Ming excited, even though wild ginseng isn't incredibly expensive for his current net worth, many years back when his father was still rich. His father paid roughly 12 thousand yuan for 2kgs of ginseng. The price increase each year, so it wouldn't be weird for the price to be 15-20 thousand per kg now.
Placing the box carefully on the kitchen table, Wang Ming inspected the ginseng again carefully. Even though the ginseng came from Meng Hao's shop, he still had to be careful to check the authenticity of the ginseng. He had heard a few cases of people getting sick from eating fake ginseng, though most only lose money as the fake ginseng doesn't hurt them.
The most important aspect of determining if a ginseng is real or not, is of course to check if it has a certificate or not, but not all real wild ginseng have it. As it depends on what shop and in which part of China they originate from. But you can also tell if the ginseng is real by looking at its shape and color.
The color should be a mix of white and brown, while the shape should like a thin hand with fingers which are its roots. Looking further at the ginsengs, Wang Ming believed the ginsengs are real. The only problem he had with them is that they aren't wild ginsengs but cultivated ones. He could tell because all five ginsengs looked almost identical in both lengths, thickness and how their roots looked.
Sadly cultivated ginseng isn't as good as wild ginseng, as wild ginsengs are not only older, but they have a better effect than cultivated ones as they live in much harsher conditions than cultivated ginseng, which gives them more nutrition than their cultivated counterpart. But at least they aren't fake ginseng. He could still get a beneficial effect from these ginsengs.
Of course he would tell Meng Hao about this, when he meets him at the competition. Hopefully Hung Ba had nothing to do with this, or else he would be in for a bad time.
Having the ginsengs in hand, Wang Ming then stumbled upon another problem. How would he extract all the nutrients from the ginseng and then infuse it into the sauce? He couldn't just put the whole ginseng into the soy sauce, as the ginseng just tastes too bitter, it would totally ruin the sauce.
He needed to extract the medicinal attributes of the ginseng without getting the bitter taste. Wang Ming thought of a few ways to make it happen. The first one is to boil the ginseng, but the problem with this is that boiling the ginseng would only get roughly 50% of the nutrients at most of the ginseng.
Luckily, another idea came to his mind. He could crush the ginseng into small bits, then boil it in water, which would give the water a better chance to absorb all the nutrients. He would then on a low heat, heat away most of the water, leaving only a few milliliters of nutrient rich water. He didn't know if it would extract all 100% nutrients of the ginseng, but Wang Ming believed this would be a much better approach.