Gou Qi Zi (Goji Berry / Lycium Fruit)

Official Gou Qi Zi (枸杞子) is the dried ripe fruit of Lycium barbarum. The pharmacopoeial name is Lycii Fructus; it is also called West goji or sweet goji. Di Gu Pi is the dried root bark of the same genus—sweet-cold, cools Blood and clears steaming bone—a different drug. Black goji is Lycium ruthenicum fruit, not the official fruit. Regional “Jin” berries vary in quality. Write Gou Qi Zi; do not swap in black berries or the bark.

According to the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Gou Qi Zi is sweet and neutral, enters the Liver and Kidney channels, and acts to enrich and tonify Liver and Kidney and benefit essence to brighten the eyes. It is used for taxation with essence loss, sore low back and knees, dizziness and tinnitus, impotence and seminal emission, interior-heat wasting-thirst, Blood-deficiency sallowness, and dim vision. Sweet-neutral and moistening, it nourishes Yin-Blood without ferocity—a dual-use food and medicine for Liver-Kidney Yin lack and eyes that are not nourished.

The slice is usually used raw after washing and drying; it is not routinely fried. The fruit tonifies Liver and Kidney and brightens the eyes. The root bark Di Gu Pi clears deficient heat and steaming bone. Tender leaves are occasionally called “heaven-essence herb” to clear the Liver, not an official slice. Dim vision from Yin lack uses the fruit; night-sweat steaming bone uses the bark. “The whole plant is precious” does not mean the parts replace each other.