I was talking about the Yin and Yang of the 5 tastes up until now, and I would like to talk about one more taste which is very important. That is astringency. This taste may not be familiar to you. When you eat a young persimmon, you experience this taste.

Astringency has very strong Yang energy and has the function of contraction. Dried persimmons have even more Yang energy because water, which is Yin energy, has been removed. So when women eat persimmons after childbirth, their uterus and abdominal muscles get firm, resulting in having early menstruation.

Persimmons are also effective for continual diarrhea. Even if the persimmons are not dried, as long as they are all natural, they are still effective.

In the case of bleeding within the brain (cerebral hemorrhage), it is good to drink the extracted astringency of persimmons in order to stop bleeding.

Astringency of a persimmon has the function of dissolving blood clots, so in the case of chronic cerebral infarction or hemorrhage, it is good to do the following:

Put ground persimmon (1 lb.) in one cup of black or brown rice vinegar (200 cc) and keep it over night. The next day strain and drink it by the amount of one quarter cup (50 cc) everyday.

However, you need to know that unnatural persimmons, in which astringency is removed by alcohol, have strong Yin energy. Therefore, on the contrary, they make the body cold.