Anything within three years is called peel, and anything over three years is called tangerine peel.

The processing of tangerine peel requires drying the orange peel in the sun, then placing it in a sealed device for 60 to 150 days, and humidifying it with humid air with a humidity of 80%. After the peel softens, it is bundled, fixed, air-dried, placed in the sun to dry, and finally sealed and stored. Unlike other Chinese herbal medicines, tangerine peel has the characteristic that the older it gets, the better it gets.

The longer the tangerine peel is stored, the better the medicinal effect will be. Generally, it cannot be used until the next year. After one year, the volatile oil content of tangerine peel will be greatly reduced, while the content of flavonoids will increase relatively. Only then can the medicinal value of tangerine peel be reflected. Fresh orange peel contains more volatile oil and does not have the same medicinal effects as tangerine peel.

Extended information:

The efficacy of tangerine peel is closely related to the aging time. For example, 3-year-old tangerine peel has just been transformed from tangerine peel into tangerine peel and has not yet been completely aged. The internal heat has not been completely removed, and some people may still get angry after taking it.

So the older the tangerine peel is, the better it is, and the older it is, the higher its medicinal value. Some people have also done component analysis and found that the aromatic oil of tangerine peel contains 24 substances. As time goes by, as the substances in the aromatic oil continue to change, its medicinal value is gradually reflected.

The aroma of tangerine peel is extremely mellow and rich, and the taste is slightly pungent but not very bitter. The longer the time, the more peculiar the aroma becomes. The 5-10-year-old tangerine peel has a slight citrus aroma; the 10-20-year-old citrus aroma has basically disappeared, and the sweet aroma gradually becomes stronger; the tangerine peel that is more than 20 years old has to scratch the surface to smell the glycolic aroma; the tangerine peel that is more than 30 years old has a camphor aroma. The older the wine is, the stronger its old medicinal or bone flavor will become.

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