About Us

Hi, we're Vita!

Vita Herbal Nutrition is a 100% natural range of Chinese cooking herbs, natural supplements, Chinese wholefoods and herbal teas. We're a small team based in Chelmsford, Essex and we've got a big love for herbs and alternative therapies.

All of our products are made from 100% natural, plant-based ingredients and are completely free from additives, artificial flavourings, added sugar and preservatives.

Everything we sell, from a 50g pack of goji berries to a dispensary bag of Chai Hu, goes through the same sourcing, testing and handling.

What we believe

Most of the dried herbs sold in the UK have been treated with sulphur. It makes them look brighter, keeps them looking that way for longer, and keeps the price down. It also changes what the herb is. We don't sell herbs treated that way, and we never have.

That means our herbs sometimes look duller than what you'll find elsewhere. We get told our Dang Gui isn't "bright" enough more often than you'd think. We'd rather sell you the herb as it actually is.

What we sell

Our range runs from the everyday cooking herbs you'd find in a Chinese kitchen through to the material practitioners use in their dispensaries:

• DaoDi Culinary Herbs, 50g and 100g packs of dried roots, seeds, flowers and mushrooms for soups, teas and congee. This is where most people start.
• Large Loose Herbs, the same herbs in 500g and 1kg packs for regular use, batch cooking, or practice dispensaries.
• Dried Culinary Spices, whole cinnamon bark, Sichuan peppercorn, cloves, ginger, fennel and more, sold whole rather than ground so you get the full aroma.
• Concentrated Herbal Granules, single herbs that dissolve in hot water in seconds. No soaking, simmering or straining.
• Natural Herb Supplements, single-herb vegan capsules with no fillers or binders, for anyone who'd rather not brew.

Who it's for

Three sorts of people buy from us. Home cooks who want real ingredients for soups, congee and tonic teas rather than a powder in a sachet. People who've been given a formula by a practitioner and need the actual herbs it names. And practitioners themselves, who need traceable, tested material in dispensary quantities.

The product pages are written with all three in mind. Where a herb is intended for professional use rather than the kitchen, the page says so.

How we source

Wherever possible we buy to the DaoDi standard. The idea is an old one: where a plant grows shapes what it becomes. Just as wine from one region tastes different from wine grown elsewhere, a herb from its traditional growing region is understood to be at its best there. Chuan Xiong from Sichuan, Chai Hu from Hebei and Henan, and so on. We've worked with the same growers since 2010, which is how we know where each herb has come from.

The raw material is cultivated without synthetic herbicides or pesticides, dried without sulphur, and processed in GMP-certified facilities. Each batch is tested to meet UK and EU safety standards, and screened for the correct level of active ingredients and the correct chemical composition, so we can trace every pack back to where it was grown.

Why our herbs look different

Sulphur fumigation is standard in the herb trade. It whitens and brightens dried herbs, extends shelf life, and kills insects. The problem is that sulphur reacts with the plant and changes its chemical make-up.

We compared sulphur-treated Bai Shao (white peony root) against our own. The treated herb had a new compound in it, Paeoniflorin Sulfonate, that wasn't in the untreated root at all, and the amount of Paeoniflorin, the herb's main active component, had dropped by more than half. That's why we don't sell sulphur-treated herbs, and why ours can look paler or duller than what you'll see elsewhere. You can read the full comparison on our non-sulphur treated herbs page.

How our granules are made

Traditionally you'd simmer a herb for an hour or more to make a decoction. Our concentrated granules do that step for you. The herb is simmered, the liquid is filtered and reduced, then spray-dried into a fine powder and formed into granules. Where a herb loses its aroma during boiling, the volatile oils are captured separately and blended back in, so the finished granule still smells and tastes like the plant. The result dissolves in hot water in seconds and can also be stirred into soups and porridge.

Recipes and guides

If you're new to cooking with Chinese herbs, our recipe blog is the place to start. It covers what each herb is, how to prepare it, what to pair it with, and simple recipes from a five-minute tea to a slow-cooked tonic soup. Most product pages link to the relevant post.

Get in touch

Questions about a herb, an order, or which format to pick? Email us at info@vitaherbalnutrition.com and we'll be happy to help.

Important: Our products are food supplements and culinary ingredients, not medicines, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. If you have a medical condition, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or take medication, speak to your GP before use.