Bencao House
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Food as medicine

Lotus seed

莲子Lián Zǐ

四气 Nature
Neutral · 平
五味 Flavour
Sweet · Astringent
归经 Channels
Spleen · Kidney · Heart
Shared-origin list
2002 catalogue · 莲子

Lotus seed is neutral, sweet and astringent, and belongs to the Spleen, Kidney and Heart channels. It is the quiet item on this list: it holds things in rather than moving them along. The green plumule at its centre, 莲子心, is bitter and cold and is sold as a separate thing entirely. The Shennong Bencao Jing, c. 200 CE, places lotus in the upper class.

A small handful of pale dried lotus seeds, photographed on warm plaster.
Nelumbo nucifera · Dried seed, plumule removed

Nelumbo nucifera

四气 · Nature

  1. cold
  2. cool
  3. neutral
  4. warm
  5. hot
Leans neither way

五味 · Flavour

sour
Gathers and holdsLiver
bitter
Drains and driesHeart
sweet
Fills, slows, harmonisesSpleen
pungent
Disperses and movesLung
salty
Softens and sends downKidney
归经 Channels
Spleen · Kidney · Heart
Part used
Dried seed, plumule removed
Shared-origin list
2002 catalogue · 莲子

In the canon

What the texts say

The lotus is the plant Chinese pharmacy takes apart most thoroughly. The seed, the plumule inside the seed, the leaf, the node of the stem, the stamen and the root are six separate items with six separate entries, and they are not interchangeable. This page is about the seed, 莲子, which is in the upper class of the Shennong Bencao Jing, c. 200 CE.

Shennong Bencao JingThe Divine Husbandman’s Classic of Materia Medicac. 200 CE

Sweet and neutral. It supplements the middle, settles the spirit, and strengthens what has grown slack.

Upper class, among the fruits

The seed’s classical character is astringent — 涩, another of the flavours added after the original five. Astringent means binding: holding in what is leaking out. That is the logic behind every traditional use of the lotus seed, and it is why the same item is described as both settling a restless mind and firming up loose stools. In the tradition those are the same verb applied in two places.

The green sprout inside the seed, 莲子心, is the exception to everything on this page. It is bitter and cold where the seed is sweet and neutral, it is used for a completely different picture, and it will make a sweet soup taste like aspirin. Most lotus seeds sold in the West have had it removed; if yours are whole and pale with a green thread visible at the split, push it out with a toothpick.

In a kitchen

How it is actually used

Lotus seeds turn floury and faintly sweet when they are cooked long enough, somewhere between a chestnut and a butter bean. They belong to the Chinese category of 糖水, sweet soups — warm, thin, lightly sweetened bowls eaten in the evening, and the closest thing Chinese food has to a dessert that is also supper.

Lotus seed and lily bulb sweet soup

Three bowls1 hour, plus soaking

40 g · ⅓ cup
Dried lotus seeds, soaked two hours, plumule removed
20 g · 3 tbsp
Dried lily bulb scales
20 g · 4 whole
Dried red jujubes, split
1.2 L · 5 cups
Cold water
15 g · 1 tbsp
Rock sugar, or less
  1. Soak the lotus seeds two hours in cold water. Check each one for the green thread at the split and push it out with a toothpick — one left in will make the whole pot bitter.
  2. Simmer the seeds in the cold water, lid ajar, for forty minutes, until a seed crushes easily against the side of the pot with a spoon.
  3. Add the lily bulb and the split dates and give it fifteen minutes more. The lily scales go translucent and should still hold their shape.
  4. Stir in the rock sugar at the very end, off the heat, and taste before you add more. It should be barely sweet. Eat it warm in the evening.

Chinese households eat this in late summer and early autumn. Canned lotus seeds work and save an hour, though they are softer; fresh ones, if you ever see them, are crisp and eaten raw like a nut.

Who it is for

Who it suits, and who it does not

Lotus seed is neutral and quiet, which makes it one of the easier entries here to try. Its binding character is also its limit: a body that is already slow and stuck does not want more holding in, and that is the complaint people report when this one does not suit them.

Tends to suit

  • A mind that will not put itself down at bedtime.
  • Loose stools that have gone on quietly for months.
  • Dreams that are busy and constant, and waking unrested.
  • A small appetite alongside broken sleep — the two together.
  • Anyone who would rather eat something than drink something.

Tends not to suit

  • Constipation, or stools that are already hard and slow.
  • Bloating and fullness that dominates the day.
  • A dry, hot picture — this is a filling food, not a moistening one.

Honestly

What to know before you start

The reading

Lotus seed suits some people and not others

This page describes a food. It cannot tell you whether it belongs in your week, because it knows nothing about how you sleep, eat or feel the cold. A reading does: thirty questions, one photograph of your tongue, and a document written in English by a physician licensed in China for US $39, sent within 48 hours.

Begin a reading$39Read a sample report