Can Coffee Be Considered Traditional Chinese Medicine? A Hospital of TCM Selling Coffee and Accepting Medical Insurance?

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When Traditional Chinese Medicine Meets Coffee

I once naively thought that the coffee industry was already competitive enough! Little did I expect that traditional Chinese medicine, in its effort to "compete" for young people's attention, would join the trend when it couldn't beat them...

A few days ago, a post about whether coffee or traditional Chinese medicine was more competitive caught my attention. Upon opening it, I discovered that the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hall under Harbin's Jiren Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital was actually selling coffee! However, this "coffee" wasn't real coffee at all - it contained only traditional Chinese medicine ingredients and no caffeine whatsoever...

Netizens reported that the "baristas" inside would take pulses and customize herbal constitution teas and "coffee" based on each person's different physical condition, truly targeting the right remedy! Some products were also prepared using pour-over coffee extraction methods...

After seeing photos of the hand-pour "coffee," I immediately opened my photo album... Hey! What a coincidence! Isn't this exactly what I do when I'm making instant Xia Sang Ju granules?

If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

I have to admit, this "if you can't beat them, join them" approach really works! Many Harbin netizens, after seeing these shares, immediately went to experience this wellness trend themselves. While the final results may not be important, the hospital has already won by allowing more young people to understand traditional Chinese medicine from different perspectives.

Regarding this matter, netizens' biggest concern was: can they use their medical insurance cards? And surprisingly, they can! However, not all products are eligible for medical insurance services.

The Rise of Wellness Trends

In recent years, as younger generations increasingly focus on wellness, more and more industries have crowded into the "wellness" track, and the combination of traditional Chinese medicine + various elements has become a surefire formula for attracting attention.

Interestingly, traditional Chinese medicine alone doesn't attract much attention, but when paired with coffee - which has the opposite impression - this stark contrast combination immediately becomes a new consumer trend that young consumers eagerly pursue.

A few years ago, Tong Ren Tang, wanting more young people to pay attention to and understand traditional Chinese medicine, used coffee as an entry point and pioneered products like goji berry lattes and hawthorn tangerine peel americanos, opening up a path of coffee wellness: "Never slack in wellness, reach the pinnacle of life."

Therefore, more and more young people have embraced the health principle of "staying up late is staying up late, but wellness can't be neglected," entering a new realm of "punk wellness." In response to this phenomenon, some coffee shop owners have been very clever, directly opening their shops inside traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies, visually bringing consumers a strong sense of wellness.

Coffee and Traditional Chinese Medicine: Unlikely Friends

Today, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals are not giving up either, opening traditional Chinese medicine shops in coffee-like atmospheres. Coffee and traditional Chinese medicine are like Tom and Jerry - they may seem like enemies, but they're actually good friends.

Many netizens joke that if coffee trees were native to China, they would surely be mentioned in the "Compendium of Materia Medica." Although coffee doesn't appear in the "Compendium of Materia Medica," it can indeed be found in the "Chinese Herbal Medicine." However, due to different understandings by different people, whether coffee is traditional Chinese medicine remains undefined for now.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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