Licorice has been used as medicine for a long time. As early as more than two thousand years ago, Shennong Herbal Classic listed it as a good medicine. Tao Hongjing, a medical scientist in the Southern Dynasties, respected licorice as "the old man of the country" and said: "This grass is the king of many medicines, and there are very few people who don't use it in ancient books." "the country is old", that is, the name of the empire. The reason why Ural Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is regarded as the "imperial doctor" of medicine is just as Li Shizhen explained in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Among all the medicines, Ural Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is the king, treating 72 kinds of milk stone poisoning, solving 1,200 kinds of plant poisoning and reconciling various medicines, so it is called" the old country ".

Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is a commonly used bulk medicinal material, which can be used as medicine and edible. Its annual demand is about 60,000 tons, ranking among the best in medicines. In recent years, the production and sales of domestic licorice have increased, and the market is better than that of wild licorice. Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is an ancient medicine with the reputation of "ten prescriptions and nine medicines", which is widely used in clinical prescriptions. At the same time, licorice extract is widely used in industry, chemical industry and other fields, and has a large number of exports. The quantity of licorice is huge, and the market is not artificial. With the increase of domestic seed market share, the attention is obviously improved.

Licorice contains many chemical components, the main components are glycyrrhizic acid, liquiritin and so on. The chemical composition of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is extremely complicated. Up to now, there are dozens of compounds isolated from licorice, such as glycyrrhizin, glycyrrhetinic acid, liquiritin, neoliquiritin, neoliquiritin, isoliquiritigenin, glycyrrhizin, 7- methylcoumarin, umbelliferone and so on. However, the composition and quantity of these compounds usually depend on the types of licorice, planting area, harvesting time and other factors. A large number of studies show that glycyrrhizin and flavonoids are the most important physiologically active substances in Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch, which mainly exist in the epidermis of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.

Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is also widely used in food industry to extract candy, preserves and chewing gum. Licorice extract is an emulsifier for making chocolate, which can also increase the taste and fragrance of beer, improve the consistency and color of dark beer, and make some soft drinks and sweet wine. Cigarette flavor. Ural licorice is also widely used in chemical industry and printing and dyeing industry.