▲ Yangju Wild Ginseng / CEO Jeomgyu Park

The outbreak of new coronavirus is sweeping the world and leaving tens of thousands into death and millions are already infected. Experts say that people with underlying conditions are more vulnerable to the virus. 

Naturally, people’s attention to healthy food that can improve immunity is skyrocketing. In South Korea, ginseng and wild ginseng have been known for high medicinal effect since the kingdom far far ago. The only problem was that they were too expensive. Today, however, they are sold at affordable price. 

Yangju Wild Ginseng
Wild ginseng grows naturally in mountains. The use of it is similar to ginseng but it surpasses ginseng when it comes to medicinal effect. Yangju Wild Ginseng is located on the foot of Homyeong Mountain in Yangju City, Gyeonggi Province. Around 10 million wood-cultivated ginseng roots are grown on the 1 million square meter big farm. The farm is ideally nestled on 400 to 500 meters above sea level and is under 80% shades and temperatures over 25 degrees Celsius. 

Yangju Wild Ginseng is known to contain 10 times more saponin than ginseng and 4 to 5 times more than red ginseng. It is also known to fight cancer, reduce cholesterol, balance blood pressure, prevent Alzheimer’s, recover energy, cure rhinitis and improve brain function.

Jeomgyu Park, CEO of Yangju Wild Ginseng, has 18 years of experience in growing wood-cultivated ginseng. His years of expertise in the field are well known and received by industry specialists and customers alike and purchasing inquiries are pouring in weekday or weekend.

Ginseng evolves to become wild ginseng
Park says that ginseng evolves to become wild ginseng and wild ginseng evolves to become ginseng. “In fact, wild ginseng evolves itself to ginseng. The lifespan of ginseng lasts up to 6 years and they do not live more than 4 years in the mountain. So I sow it again for them to live 4 to 5 more years and by repeating the cycle they get aged around 25 to 26 years.” 

Size-wise, wild ginseng is smaller than ginseng. The look, taste and the speed of growth as well as medicinal effect also vary. “It is interesting to observe that the root of wild ginseng grows upward even if I planted it downward. So it makes me easy to pluck it out when the time comes. On the other hand, ginseng is hard to pluck out even with a hoe.”

Affordable price
Yangju Wild Ginseng is selling a number of wild ginseng themed products such as ‘sansamju (distilled wild ginseng spirit)’ and ‘sansam makulli (wild ginseng rice wine)’. Park joined hands with Chunsu Yangjo to make the liquors by using 4 month ripen wild ginseng water and low temperature ripening system for clean taste. 600 bottles produced in 2017 with cutting edge craftsmanship were all sold to Japan and China and the number went to 10,000 the next year. Highly encouraged by this, Park is planning to push forward volume of export this year.