Do not wash after digging. Shake off some covered dirt, place them in a plastic box as the picture shown. A good method of keeping the ginseng fresh is to use green moss. Lay the ginseng on top of green moss. And put another layer of green moss, with the green facing down on top of the ginseng. Close the lid immediately. Then, place the box inside a cooler that is set to 35°F – 38°F. In this way, it can be preserved fresh for 1 – 2 months without losing weight.
Put a layer examine this site of green moss at the bottom of the container, with the green facing up
Note: Don’t store fresh ginseng in the freezer which is set below 32°F (0°C). Once it’s frozen, it goes bad. Do not wash after digging. Once the ginseng is wet, you must dry them otherwise the ginseng roots will go bad quickly.
The pictures below: Roots may increase the purchasing price 10-30% those with higher age, prettier in shape and with a neck longer than 2-4 inches.
In some area, the wild ginseng roots surface color is grayish-yellow to reddish-yellow. They are considered less valuable than the one that has blackish mud in its wrinkles circle. The price difference between them is about 5-10%.
Running water cleaning will decrease the active ingredient from the surface, and also wipe out too much blackish mud color from the skin
Freshly harvested wild ginseng cannot be stacked together or placed in plastic bags for a long time. If you are planning on drying storage your ginseng, the fresh ginseng should be cleaned the same day.
When fresh ginseng roots were stacked together for too long if the temperature is above 40°F, the white inner color could turn to grayish-yellow or reddish-yellow, or even worse: molded. For this reason, cleaning and drying of your freshly harvested wild ginseng in time are very important to ensure its quality and value.
Precautions: Stacking the fresh roots for prolonged periods of time, as shown in the photo below, will result in the spongy inner becoming moldy, yellow-pink, smells bad, and unusable.
When cleaning the wild ginseng, do not place them in running water. Instead, we suggest to soak and wash them. Soaking in water for 5-10 seconds each time, repeated the process for 3-4 times in order to gently remove the dirt.
As we know, the black color mud in the wrinkles is very important factor in determining the age of wild ginseng. Excessive rinse will make the surface appears so white that looks like non-wild ginseng.
At the same time, insufficient cleaning should also be avoided as excess amounts of black mud covered on ginseng roots will also result in a decrease in the purchasing price.
The picture below shows unwashed or insufficient washed wild ginseng. There is still a large amount of dark mud left. This will affect the purchase price.
Picture Below: After soaking too long, then put them into the fridge. The root cracked because it was situated with an excessive amount of water. Therefore, result in the quality decrease.
Picture Below: After long soaking, and not drying in time, the plants become molded. This is another factor for value decrease.
After washing, the fresh ginseng should be dried promptly. Do not stack them tangle together as the picture shown below:
If it happened that digging caused ginseng root hurt or break, it can’t be directly put into the fridge. Instead, it must be cleaned and dried in the same day. This is the key to keep them from rotten.