Seaweed and Oyster Soup

Herbal Tea Name: Seaweed and Oyster Soup

Chinese Name: 紫菜牡蛎汤

Formula

150 g fresh oyster meat, 15 g nori, chopped scallions, minced ginger, salt, five-spice powder, and sesame oil to taste.

Main Ingredients

Efficacy

Resolves phlegm and disperses nodules. Suitable for simple goiter.

Usage

Serve the soup as an accompaniment to a meal.

Commentary

With nori as the sovereign, of cold nature and sweet, salty flavor, entering the Lung, it resolves phlegm, softens hardness, clears heat, and promotes diuresis, and this opening sets the main therapeutic direction. The ministerial layer, oyster meat (nature cool, flavor sweet, salty, channeled into the Liver, Kidney, nourishes yin and blood and calms the spirit), and ginger (nature warm, flavor pungent, channeled into the Lung, Spleen, Stomach, disperses cold, relieves cough and harmonizes the stomach), lends support that reinforces the sovereign’s main effect. Finished with scallions, acting as the envoy to harmonize the various ingredients, the formula attains a regulated, neither-excess nor-deficient balance. Together the herbs converge on this action, in accord with the qi stagnation with phlegm pattern.

Seaweed and Oyster Soup,From *Proven Tea, Decoction, and Soup Recipes for Common Ailments*,Resolves phlegm and disperses nodules. Suitable for simple goiter.

prolonged use of the heat-clearing, cold herbs may harm spleen yang; those with yang deficiency or poor appetite with loose stools should avoid them