By Kim Tae-gyu
BUYEO — After being washed twice including under ultrasonic waves, buckets of clean fresh ginseng roots are first steamed a full day then undergo a couple of weeks of drying out in sunlight to become red ginseng.
The fine roots of the specially prepared red ginseng are trimmed down and then they are sorted into three grades of heaven, earth and good by appearance and examination of internal density.
At the world’s largest ginseng factory of Korea Ginseng Corp. (KGC), 150 kilometers south of Seoul, legendary heaven- and earth-grade red ginseng is created using such multiple efforts in state-of-the-art facilities.
“The procedure of growing and harvesting fresh ginseng plants is far more complicated. We just take six-year-old ginseng from growers under multiple-year contracts,” KGC official Go A-reum said.
“Over the six-year period, the plants will face on-site tests six times including twice on soil aimed at checking whether they abide by our pesticide guides, which are three times tighter than the government norms.”
If the growers fail to pass the rigorous test even once, their products will not be purchased by KCG, which markets red ginseng under the Cheongkwanjang brand.
Only a tiny fraction of plants are heaven- and earth-grade ginseng. Only 300 packs of 600 gram heaven-grade ginseng is produced every year at the KCG factory.
“We have around 1,000 sales outlets across the world, which means that the majority of them are not provided with heaven-grade ginseng products at all for a year,” Go said. “Some wait for years.”
In line with the ever rocketing popularity of red ginseng, the Buyeo factory has been operating at full swing — it plans to handle 8,700 tons of fresh ginseng this year, up from 7,300 tons in 2011.
However, it struggles to meet the demand because as the brand power is globally established, an increasing number of health-conscious people want to buy only Cheongkwanjang products.
“Red ginseng includes up to 32 kinds of healthy saponins, which is comparable to 15 in American and eight in Japanese ginseng,” Go said.
Saponins refer to a class of chemical compounds found in natural sources, particularly abundant in specific plants.
“There are more than 360 kinds of saponins and what red ginseng retains is very rare in other sources. That’s one of many reasons why red ginseng is so popular,” she said.
Traditionally, many Korean growers harvested four- or five-year-old ginseng. As water makes up approximately 70 percent of fresh ginseng, the roots begin to decompose within a week.
Hence, marketers peel and dry them to make white ginseng, which can last about a month.
A month is not long enough for Koreans to store ginseng to be sold later or to export overseas. Producers found a way to steam and dry it to make red ginseng, which can last up to 10 years.
Red ginseng was found to be a boon because it not only lasts longer but also contains more saponins compared to white and even fresh ginseng.
And KGC found that six years is the best age for red ginseng.
“When ginseng turns five or six, many plants wither or die. Hence, farmers tend to harvest the plants at four or five years after sowing,” Go said.
“But the six-year-old roots are found to peak in terms of the amount of good components even better than seven- or eight-year-old ones. Accordingly, we stick to six-year-old roots.”
The number of petioles increase by one every year from just one in the first year to six in the sixth year. However, six is the maximum and the number does not rise thereafter.
“In experiments, we harvested 10-year-old fresh ginseng roots to learn that they are inferior to six-year-old ones. Subsequently, we concluded that they are the best available,” Go said.