Sapakum-paesat or Medicinal Properties
In traditional Thai medicine, the properties of medicinal recipes are chiefly determined by their taste, as well as other characteristics which are recorded in historical manuals or passed from generation to generation through oral tradition. Taste is understood to indicate an herb or remedy's healing action. The Ya rot-prataan refers to the chief taste of a remedy, of which there are three broad categories: cool/fragrant, hot and mild. Separate ingredients are also classified into ten distinct taste categories or ten tastes of the crude drugs.
"Ya rot-prataan" is the tastes of traditional formulations which one would not really feel and depend on the kinds or groups of crude drugs in the formulations. Ya rot-prataan has been divided into Ya rot-sukum, Ya rot-ron and Ya rot-yan.
• Ya rot-ron or hot taste are formulations that mainly contain hot and spicy crude drugs such as Benjakul (five hot crude drugs: long pepper flower, wild betel root, sa khan vine, chetta mun phloeng daeng root and ginger rhizome) and trikatu (three hot crude drugs: dried ginger, black pepper, long pepper).
• Ya rot-yan or cool taste are formulations that can be used to treat fire element imbalance, such as antipyretic "Ya kiao". Main crude drugs typically included pollen, leaves, cool tasted roots and animal parts, such as teeth, horns and shells. Some drugs are burnt to ash or slowly burnt to charcoal also possess cool taste.
• Ya rot-sukum is mild tasted formulations, generally used for blood-related illnesses and composed of various kinds of gots and tiens, eaglewood, chalood, cinnamon and kon dok. Ya hom is popular example for Ya rot-sukum.