“Eighteen years ago, people didn’t even know the name of this ingredient,” says 58-year-old Gil Sa-hyeon, holding up a cluster of dried brownish stems. “Now it’s everywhere.”
His shop, Joseon Yakcho, sits in the heart of Seoul’s Yangnyeongsi Market, South Korea’s largest traditional medicinal herb market, its streets lined with shops displaying buckets of herbs such as liquorice root and cinnamon bark that spill on to the pavements, filling the air with their distinct, earthy aroma.
