China's food-as-medicine market is splitting into two very different businesses

In autumn 2026, two curves in China's food-as-medicine business are running in opposite directions. On the ingredient side, orders for goji, red date, longan and chrysanthemum are up more than 180% year on year. On the bottled wellness drink side, new product launches fell 63% in the second quarter and sales dropped 20.1%. One gate is opening, one is closing. Below are the four questions readers ask most.

"Ingredient orders are up 180%. Is it too late to open a herbal tea shop?"

Short answer: not too late. But do not mistake activity upstream for foot traffic at the door. They are two separate sets of books.

Industry feedback from supply-chain players such as Tanyang Health (cited in a Sina Finance Caijing Toutiao article this year) puts the growth in food-as-medicine ingredients — goji, red date, longan, chrysanthemum — at over 180% year on year in 2026, with custom flower teas and OEM production for wellness drinks among the most discussed startup directions. What that curve describes is shops restocking in bulk.

So what are the shops actually selling? The same article notes that the in-store experience has shifted: clear glass pots boiling tea at the table, a whole chrysanthemum unfurling in the cup, grains and beans visible in layers. Visible ingredients carry their own reach; check-in posts on Xiaohongshu and Weibo have passed the million mark.

The case most often cited is Yeye Bu Pao Cha, where the osmanthus brew is a must-order and a cartoon grandfather statue stands at the entrance for customers to pose beside with a "YEYE" hand sign. Two Weibo users shared small moments: one ducked into a Changsha store during a rainstorm, fumbled a phone and spilled half a cup; staff handed over tissues and remade the drink. Another, having a rough day, was given a small flower by a staff member.

A cup of tea costing a little over ten yuan sells the feeling of being looked after.

"But aren't bottled wellness drinks struggling? Shop or bottle?"

Short answer: the phase of pushing volume on concept alone is over. This is not herbal drinks going cold overall; it is a change of playbook.

An autumn 2026 article from Smzdm reports that after growing 35-fold in three years, the wellness drink category hit the brakes: new launches down 63% in Q2, sales down 20.1% year on year. The article draws a harder line — the food-as-medicine catalogue has expanded to 106 items, but being permitted as a food ingredient does not permit any health claim. Anything on a shelf hinting at what drinking it will do for you should be read as marketing language.

Consumers have also become pickier. The same article notes a widely discussed Zhihu thread in September questioning the runaway popularity of red bean and coix seed water, and a Xiaohongshu post that read: "Apple water plus goji plus red date, three days straight, no glow, and the whole family felt heaty" — 928 comments arguing over who was actually heaty.

The difficulty with bottled drinks is not the ingredient. It is that the bottle cannot explain itself.

"How should I track raw material prices? Polygonatum at 42.5–44 yuan per jin before the holiday — should I stock up?"

Short answer: watch the origin supply index and the festival calendar first, then the test reports. Price is short term; quality is long term.

A Huangjing Portal report dated 4 October 2026 says pre-National Day tonic stocking revived end-market purchasing of polygonatum (huangjing) at the end of September, but the supply index in main producing areas fell sharply by 30–50% year on year, with farmers holding back stock in expectation of higher prices. Yimutian data shows the supply index in Qiaocheng, Bozhou, down more than 35% year on year, with decoction piece factories quoting steady at 42.5–44 yuan per jin. Industry forecasts see the pre-holiday average oscillating narrowly at 41.2–41.5 yuan per jin, with possible downward pressure after the holiday and a slight shift lower in the fourth quarter.

There is another layer beyond price. Bioon compiled a specification comparison: the Chinese Pharmacopoeia requires polygonatum polysaccharide content of no less than 7.0%, and 16 g/100 g is a commonly used high-quality reference threshold in the trade. Among these, Qizhenlu organic polygonatum measured 25.3 g/100 g, issued by Centre Testing International, report number A2260163623101002C; Jiuzhitang's public listing figure is 16.2 g/100 g with no report number found; Li Liangji steamed polygonatum's 16.1 g/100 g comes from Centre Testing International's 2026 food-as-medicine product survey data, not a product batch report; and no public measured polysaccharide values were found for Kangmei Pharmaceutical or Banshannong nine-steam-nine-sun polygonatum.

The one question worth asking when selecting product is: is there a batch test report? "Nine steam, nine sun" describes a process. The report is the evidence.

"What can smaller shops learn from the brands that broke out?"

Short answer: three things — turn a formula into a scenario, pick the right channel, and make the ingredient visible.

A SIAL roundup mentions several. Guanzhan, founded in 2014, saw its ready-to-eat fish maw reach 77.85 million yuan in online sales during Double 11 2024, up 195% year on year, with cumulative sales past 5 million bottles and annual sales at Sam's Club above 100 million yuan. Guoyi Zhizhen develops and produces more than 240 food-as-medicine products across eight categories; its sparkling water line draws on classic Chinese medicine formulas, organised by drinking occasions such as late nights, energy and lightness, and its lead says the exhibition period brought more than 300 enquiries from across China as well as Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan. Linyuanchun works with birch sap, and its lead says the best-selling markets are first-tier cities and cities with populations over ten million. Senguo Manfen sits within the health division of Kangyuan Group and focuses on cold-region blueberry purée.

Channels are moving too. The Huangjing Portal article of 4 October 2026 notes that retail channels such as Sam's Club, Hema and Walmart are clearly stepping up in the food-as-medicine category.

What smaller shops cannot copy is the supply chain and the budget. What they can copy is the sequence: scenario naming, visible ingredients, concentrated channels.

What this means for operators

Treat visibility as part of the product. Half the reason a herbal tea gets bought again is in the cup; the other half is in the customer's camera roll.

Do not bet on concept. The boundaries of food as medicine are written clearly, and what you can and cannot say is best settled before you choose a site.

Treat reports as a purchasing threshold. Ingredient prices will swing; shops that last are the ones with stable buying standards.

PAKONTONG's approach is to put these three things into concrete action. By day, the PAKONTONG Herbal Tea & Coffee store at City Balcony, Zhuhai, boils herbal tea to order and also makes new Chinese-style coffee with chenpi, osmanthus and longjing folded into coffee, plus Chinese whole-leaf tea; after dark it switches to herbal craft brews and herbal cocktails. The same batch of herbal ingredients covers several parts of the day. On the gift side is the Twenty-Four Herbal Tea series, six formulas in individual small tins, available on JD.com.

The opportunity in this round does not belong to whoever tells the most mystical story. It belongs to whoever makes a cup of herbal tea visible, explainable and steady to sell.