Cold

寒 hán, is the coldest end of the temperature spectrum. When also bitter, these herbs have a strong action on clearing heat, such as coptis (huang lian, Coptis chinensis), baikal skullcap (huang qin, Scutellaria baicalensis), phellodendron (huang bai, Phellodendron chinense) and Japanese knotweed (hu zhang, Reynoutria japonica).

When sweet tasting, they nourish the yin, as seen in American ginseng (xi yang shen, Panax quinquefolius) and shatavari (tian men dong, Asparagus racemosus). Coldness harms the Spleen and damages the yang, so these herbs should be used with caution in Spleen deficiency and avoided in yang deficiency. Cold herbs may be dry fried or wine fried to reduce these unwanted effects.