The $2,000 Root Nobody Had Seen Growing: Korean Ginseng in 1898

Somewhere in the mountains of Korea grew a root that could be decades old, and in the old days a single good one could sell for nearly two thousand dollars. One version was said to knock you out for three days if you ate it whole. In May 1898 a Seoul magazine pulled together three official reports on ginseng: one from an American consul, one from an American naval officer and one from a British consul. We cover the money, the government's cut, the farm beds that were watered every three days for years, and the legends. The writers were foreign officials, so their framing is labelled as their own view. Hosted by Jay, with Meera and Soons. Soons closes with her Court Report. Source: "Korean Ginseng," The Korean Repository, Vol. V, No. 5 (May 1898), pp. 161–170 (Seoul: The Trilingual Press). Published in 1898, so it is in the public domain in the US.