Tongjiang White Fungus

Tongjiang White Fungus

Tongjiang White Fungus is a protected geographical indication product.

Tongjiang White Fungus is a certified geographical indication trademark.

　　Tongjiang White Fungus is a famous Chinese specialty, rich in various amino acids and trace elements essential for the human body. It boasts extremely high medicinal and nutritional value. Tongjiang enjoys a mild and moist climate, making it ideal for the growth of many edible fungi and serving as the birthplace of white fungus. With over 150 years of cultivation history, Tongjiang County is honored as the "Hometown of White Fungus in China." It currently has 70,000 hectares of fungus forest resources, produces 600,000 kilograms of white fungus annually, and has developed more than 10 series of products including white fungus food, beverages, health supplements, and cosmetics. The annual output value exceeds 100 million yuan, making it a pillar industry of the county’s economy.

　　Tongjiang County in Sichuan Province is abundant in white fungus production. Compared to similar varieties, the local Tongjiang White Fungus is of superior quality, renowned both domestically and abroad for its thick texture, tender flesh, ease of cooking, and high nutritional and medicinal values. In 1994, Tongjiang County was designated as the "Hometown of White Fungus in China" by the China Specialties Association. White fungus benefits the lung, spleen, stomach, kidney, and large intestine meridians. It nourishes yin and kidneys, strengthens essence, moistens lungs, promotes saliva and relieves cough, clears heat and moistens intestines to benefit the stomach, replenishes qi and blood to strengthen the heart, invigorates the body and brain, improves complexion, beautifies skin, and suppresses cancer. It is used to treat lung heat cough, dry cough, consumptive cough, chronic cough with itchy throat, blood-streaked sputum, long-term cough damaging collaterals, rib pain, lung abscess, lung atrophy, irregular menstruation, pulmonary tuberculosis, gastritis, constipation, bloody stools, watery diarrhea, dysentery, facial dark spots, cancer, tumors, and other conditions.

　　The exceptional quality of white fungus from Tongjiang County, Sichuan Province, which sets it apart from similar varieties, is inseparable from the region’s unique natural conditions. Among the mountains and waters of Tongjiang’s Nine Bends and Eighteen Hills, as the sun sets, wisps of earth vapor rise gently from the grass. At the same time, layers of mist slowly descend from the sky. By midnight, the earth vapor and mist converge, blending into cotton-like white clouds that roll through the forests and twist in the mountain valleys, transforming into various strange and spectacular shapes—a vivid representation of the “union of heaven and earth” described in the I Ching. This process continues until around 10 a.m. the next day, when the clouds gradually disperse into thin mist and eventually vanish completely. After sunset in the afternoon, the cycle begins again. Tongjiang White Fungus resembles the shape of a cockscomb, with a beige color and a somewhat translucent appearance, and is rich in gelatin. Its earliest origin is in the Nine Bends and Eighteen Hills of Fuyang–Chenhe. In the words of local fungus farmers, the origin of white fungus can be explained as “heaven breeds mist, mist breeds dew, and dew breeds fungus.” Because Tongjiang White Fungus grows under extraordinary natural conditions and a unique climate, experts say it is a manifestation of the essence of heaven and earth, and a crystallization of the sun and moon’s vitality.