Ice cream with Traditional Chinese herbs: Punk wellness in a whole new level

Apparently, gelato shops in China have been inspired by the popular Punk wellness trend. A gelato shop called Zhongyaotang (忠曜堂) launched a series of ‘herbal medicinal ice cream.’

The shop is located in Shanghai, and features a traditional Chinese style. At the entrance, there’s a sign with Chinese characters 忠曜堂 written in calligraphy. Inside the shop, an entire wall is designed to look like a traditional Chinese medicine cabinet, giving the feel of stepping into an old herbal pharmacy.

The shop boasts of new-style Chinese ice cream. They do not only have flavours like Ginger with brown sugar and bamboo and jasmine, but also provide more unconventional flavour options like Loquat & Honey Extract, five-black tea, and eight immortals fruit.

Expensive but extremely popular

A double-scoop of traditional Chinese herb flavored ice cream in Zhongyaotang sells at ¥ 38, whereas a regular double-scoop ice cream is about ¥ 10 to ¥ 15.

Despite the high price, it is often sold out.

It is extremely popular among young working professionals, who often embraces the concept Punk health, and live by the motto – party the hardest, stay up the latest, and keep wellness in the coolest way.

Riding the trend of punk wellness

As a rising trend, punk health has certainly inspired other brands as well.

Tong Ren Tang (同仁堂), one of the oldest Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbal pharmacy, has launched its punk wellness coffee. This is a coffee with goji berries which is meant to boost the energy to help people wake up early in the next morning.

In White Stupa Temple (白塔寺) , a heritage site in Beijing, people can sip on some punk wellness drinks like Roselle Plum Tea and Snow Pear Soup from the temple’s Yao café.

Since 2023, the concept Punk wellness continued to gain momentum online. An increasing number of new tea shops and cafés emerged, with goji berry coffee becoming a staple on the menus of many of these brands.

Punk wellness: remedy for the soul, rather than for the body

According to The Generation Z Nutrition Consumption Trends Report published by Xinhuanet in 2022, the average urban resident spends over ¥1,000 annually on health and wellness. Young consumers aged 18 to 35 account for as much as 83.7% of this group.

While the Gen Z generation in China becomes the main work force now, they all face situations like working overtime, staying up late, eating improperly, and irregular daily routine, which all contributes to thinning hair, growing belly, worsening skin tones and emotional stress. Seeing all these red flags, young people started to worry about their health, and the unrelenting anxieties of health are fueling the creation of countless punk wellness brands.

While numerous products are emerging under the concept of punk wellness, some can’t help asking the question: do these products really have any health effects? Can they really promote wellness?

It does not require a degree in TCM to know that ice cream inherently contradicts to the wellness promoting concepts of TCM. No matter how many herbs are added in the ice cream, due to its coldness, it is considered harmful to one’s health in TCM.

Young people understand that those black goji berries, Chenpi, and Ginseng in these food and drinks are likely to be a novelty selling point only. But what they are seeking from these products isn’t really health promoting effects, but more of a psychological comfort to themselves as if they have done their job to keep their health and wellness.

After all, the spirits of punk wellness is pretty unconventional and full of contradictions: beer with goji berries, cola with dangshen, staying up late with a face mask on, wearing knee pads to dance all night.

What they offer is really a form of emotional value – not for the body, but for the soul, for keeping peace in mind.