After abandoning all hope in imperial examinations and an official career, the Qing dynasty author Pu Songling (1640–1715 AD) busied himself with teaching, writing and treating his neighbors as a physician. One winter Pu managed to cure a rich man of his longstanding lung ailment. Pu was so happy that he composed a poem on a critical ingredient that he used in his prescription: The cordyceps really lives up to its name/ It changes and comes into being at one go/ A herb that is both animal and plant/ It is hard to fathom the wonders of nature.

At around the same time that Pu wrote this poem, a merchant with business in both China and Japan presented this herb as a prized gift to a shogun of the ruling Tokugawa clan. The shogun was not sure what this was, and so consulted an esteemed monk who had spent much time in China. After the monk explained what this herb could do, the general could not help but exclaim: Such a miracle really does exist!

This amazing herb that captivated both Pu Songling and the Tokugawa shogun was none other than caterpillar fungus (Cordyceps sinensis) or cordyceps, which is found only in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In the last 20 years, the price of cordyceps has skyrocketed by as much as 10,000 times.