The late Dr. Joel Penner, producer of the American Dragon website, was a dedicated teacher and practitioner. He derived much satisfaction from helping to heal people. We are grateful for all the services he provided and we hope that the information found on his website can continue to serve the community. The American Dragon website was his passion, and, over the years, has become a great reference for both patients and professionals. If you would like to help with the hosting & maintenance expenses of the American Dragon website, go to americandragon.com
WELCOME
SINCE 1987
Providing TCM clinicians with extraordinary, one of a kind, herbal tea concentrates.
Assume There Is Always a Way To Improve Your Practice.
As TCM professionals, we should never close the door on change. Even just a little more capability in a medicine can make all the difference. Herbal extract concentrate brands are broadly dispersed in between the best and the worst. Choosing the right brand, then, is critical. Simple analysis shows that popularity is not a reliable indicator pointing to the best brand. So, on the page: Vital Signs, we’ve listed the reliable indicators leading to a choice based on the actual potency level of a product rather than on the allure of the brand’s marketing pitch. Utilizing these vital signs is in a patient’s best interest and it’s an essential component of a solid business longevity plan.
The Elephant in the Room
What goes stale faster, after opening, than breakfast cereals without preservatives? …Dry powder or granule herbal extract concentrates: Much faster. That’s convenient to ignore . . .
…But as the staling increases, the clinical value decreases. After every time a bottle of dry herbal extract concentrate powder/granule is opened, the staling accelerates: it’s perpetually degrading, measured in days, not in weeks or months. If a raw herb pharmacy is not practical for you, and you understand the problem with dried herbal extract concentrates, consider our alternative: high potency liquid concentrates (not tinctures) with freshness and full potency lasting for years with all of natures’ vital therapeutic elements intact. We’ll explain why the dried products (pills, powders, granules) that we clinicians have been led to believe in, while convenient, are no longer at peek strength or effectiveness – explained so anyone can actually understand it – (The Problem With Dried Tea)
If we don’t experience new things, we don’t get better.
We offer over 600 formulas/single herbs, and custom formulas infinitum. Intensely TCM, not tincture strength. Cooked, not soaked, fresh, not stale. A taste that confirms high potency. They’re decisively closer in capability to the prescriptions out of a raw herb pharmacy – and they are quite tolerable in a mango juice shot in order to mitigate the strong taste.
Behind the flavor is the power.
A strong flavor is a reliable indicator of high capability, as opposed to the weak flavor of low capability.
TRADITIONAL FORMULAS OR YOUR OWN CUSTOM
FORMULAS – MADE HIGHLY POTENT
What does it take to produce herbal tea concentrates that are entirely different?
It takes doing less: never drying the tea – together with a production method involving a unique style of cooking and concentrating. The conventional mass-production method involves drying a tea to a powder or granule – it’s the key to efficient industrial scale mass distribution. But drying induces rapid and ongoing deterioration – which is our profession’s most important and most overlooked quality issue. The two production methods are as dissimilar as the resulting products are different. Tasting each in comparison reveals where the potency is. We protect the tea concentrates with 20% alcohol so they’re 100% potent when they’re needed. Every time. All the time.
IT’S MORE WORK, BUT IT’S WORTH DOING IT THIS WAY
Our Trade-in Program Replaces Your Staling Powders/Granules at Low Cost
Do you mix concentrated herbal extract granules/powders to fill prescriptions? It’s an inconvenient truth, but unless they contain preservatives, they are going stale right now. The steady decline in potency, beginning at the time the original tea was dried, progresses faster than you might think. Oily Seeds are at highest risk. Staling is exacerbated by storage at room temperature, non-photoprotective packaging (white bottles), and especially by the exposure to humidity after repeated opening. The difference between 100% potent, and some degree of stale, can be of enormous consequence.
Those factors make a pharmacy of herbal extract concentrate powders/granules entirely impractical.
We may be able to take the powders/granules from your pharmacy and will replace them with enduringly fresh, highly potent liquid tea concentrates. Maybe we can replace your tinctures also… And do it all at a reduced cost.
– Contact us for arrangements –
We are not interested in replicating short cuts or compromises.
There are many herbal preparation techniques mentioned in ancient texts. But like today, ancient people competed for status, business was business, and short cuts and compromises were necessary to allow the workers to conveniently carry herbs (pills) while working nonstop in the fields. Did the Emperor take herbal prescriptions in the extract pill/powder form? …No.
ABOUT JR13 TCM
30+ years of experience. One gallon at a time. Ongoing improvement.
In 1987, a group of clinicians with backgrounds in science and engineering came together. We recognized that when a raw herb pharmacy was not accessible, practitioners had only bleak alternatives. “As good as it gets” was not good enough. Supported by unconventional inclinations, we pioneered radical changes to entrenched extraction/concentration methods. Rather than pursuing mass-production volume and marketing flair, we focused entirely on ways to produce a better concentrate for our patients; closer in capability to the prescriptions out of a raw herb pharmacy. As a private, innovative laboratory/pharmacy, we worked smart and made tangible progress – one gallon at a time. Improvements are dynamic and ongoing. Passion over routine. No details insignificant. No industrialized shortcuts. We measure success not by how many units we sell, but by how many lives we improve. This is why after 30 years, we still love our work.
Trade in a dried herbal extract pharmacy for fresh, high potency liquids.
KNOWING HERBALISM LIKE THE BACK OF ONE’S HAND DOES NOT AMOUNT TO A HILL OF BEANS IF THE HERBAL MEDICINE IS WEAK.
It takes years to earn a license. But it doesn’t take long for weak herbal medicine to sink a practice. A practitioner highly skilled in acupuncture but prescribing weak herbal medicine may get by regardless thanks to the placebo effect. But when the patient’s belief in the herbal medicine combines with herbal medicine that is actually powerful, patient satisfaction improves significantly.
Let’s say, a new patient arrives and mentions a TCM formula taken without results. Wrong formula? It’s more likely that the medicine was weak; an all too common problem for unaware clinicians. We should never assume that a new patient had ever taken a potent TCM formula before. We clinicians strongly want to believe that we chose an herbal extract brand that is highly effective. When we become hands-on involved (see VITAL SIGNS page), it adds a higher level of confidence that we did.
*CBD OIL
Organic . 1000mg . Full Spectrum . Organic MCT carrier
For just the cost of the CBD oil, we can add it to a TCM classic or custom formula.