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Name

Among the varieties of Lycium fruits on sale throughout the world, we find four names that constantly return :

Lycium Barbarum, Lycium Chinense, Lycium Chinensis and Lycium Tibeticum.

Regrettably, the salesmen of these Lycium varieties mix the information relative to every variety to try to prove that their Goji is the best, but all that resulted in an incredible mess which we are going to try to explain the most clearly possible.

At first, in the botanical list, Lycium Chinensis and Lycium Tibeticum do not exist. These names seem to have been invented by unscrupulous salesmen in the aim to present false exclusive varieties.

Are we sure that Lycium Tibeticum is a very rare variety of Goji which grows wildly in the mountains of Himalaya ? That's false. At first, there is no commercial production of wild Goji, quite as any other wild fruit because of the required quantities. Furthermore, none of these salesmen is capable of informing us about the location of the fields where would be picked those famous Wild Goji of Himalaya.

We should note that there are no zones capable to permit the agriculture of the Goji in regions close to Himalaya since they are rather steep, dry or still very cold zones.

Some salesmen are going to say that Tibeticum is in fact the same thing as Chinensis, but wilder, thus more nourishing. Since both do not exist in the botanical list, this argument is worthless.

There are therefore only two real types of Goji:
Lycium Barbarum and Lycium Chinense.

Lycium Barbarum grows, as we explained it in a previous chapter, in the North Western regions of China. Lycium Chinense grows, as for it, in Southern regions. Chinense Fruits can be recognized because they are generally smaller than Barbarum, they have a clearer red color and they have an unpleasant taste.

There is only a single question to clear out:

Which one between Lycium Barbarum and Lycium Chinense is going to gain the palm of the best Lycium?

Some people are going to believe that all Lycium products are like tomatoes and oranges, that there is no big difference from a variety to the other one. Lycium is like a mushroom, a great deal of vareties vary from one to another. Some among the 90 varieties can even be toxic.

To know more about Lycium Barbarum and Lycium Chinense, we visited two data banks of scientific medical researches (see chapter « The science and the media » for more details). In these data bases, we examined each of the popular varieties of Lycium among the four that we have already named.

We found no results for Lycium Tibeticum. There are two or three results with Chinensis, but it seems that it is simply a confusion of name with Chinense.

As for Lycium Barbarum, it is the one on which the most experiments were made (more than 90). Lycium Barbarum is also the only variety of Lycium on whom we identified the unique polysaccharides.

We also verified the data concerning the antioxidizing value on the ORAC scale, and Lycium Barbarum goes out winning, once again.

The margin between Lycium Chinense and Lycium Barbarum is maybe not enormous, but it is there. Lycium Barbarum wins the prize at the same time for the best Lycium and the most nourishing fruit in the world.

To note that Goji is also sold under the following naming: wolfberry, matrimony vine, bocksdorn, cambronera and Duke Of Argyll tea tree.

Always ask for the origin of your Goji as well as its variety of Lycium. A false representation could demonstrate a false seriousness of the salesman.