Five Flavors → Five-Zang Organ Tropism
Five Flavors → Five-Zang Organ Tropism is a Chinese / Herbal — wǔ wèi organ affinity body system as transmitted through the lineage The Huangdi Neijing correlates five flavors with the five zang within its five-phase medical cosmology: sour with Liver, bitter with Heart, sweet with Spleen, pungent with Lung, and salty with Kidney. This system presents that dietetic/herbal classification as five target-organ points and a cyclic visual aid.. This page lists every point in the system with sourced placements and links to cross-tradition correspondences curated for The Body Spiritual.
Open in interactive explorerPrimary sources
- Huangdi Neijing · Suwen (黃帝內經素問) (Han redaction; trans. Unschuld & Tessenow, University of California Press 2011) — Suwen ch. 23 (Xuanming wuqi) discusses the five qi and five flavors in relation to the zang; ch. 5 supplies the wider five-phase correspondence frame. This is the canonical basis for the flavor-to-organ affinities represented here.
- Bensky, Clavey & Stöger, Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica (3rd ed., Eastland Press 2004) — The materia-medica reference explains how taste and channel-entry language is used in modern clinical classification; the five-flavor organ set remains a classical correspondence, not an anatomical taste map.
Known lineage variants
- The Neijing discusses flavor correspondences in several correlated passages and later materia medica traditions qualify them by dose, preparation, and pattern; this map keeps only the canonical five-way shorthand.
- The body loci are TARGET-ORGAN projections of flavor classification, not an anatomical taste map or a claim about direct biomedical organ delivery.
Related systems
No other systems share this tradition label.
Points
- Suān 酸 — Sour → Liver — Wood phase / Liver affinity
- Kǔ 苦 — Bitter → Heart — Fire phase / Heart affinity
- Gān 甘 — Sweet → Spleen — Earth phase / Spleen affinity
- Xīn 辛 — Pungent → Lung — Metal phase / Lung affinity
- Xián 鹹 — Salty → Kidney — Water phase / Kidney affinity
Frequently asked
What is Suān 酸 — Sour → Liver?
Sour is the flavor class paired with the Liver in the Neijing five-flavor correspondence system. The anatomical-right upper-abdominal point is a target-organ projection used to show the classical affinity, not a claim that sour foods anatomically collect in the liver.
What is Kǔ 苦 — Bitter → Heart?
Bitter is paired with the Heart in the five-flavor organ framework. The chest point visualises the functional Heart target in a front-view silhouette and does not represent a taste receptor map or a direct nutritional pathway.
What is Gān 甘 — Sweet → Spleen?
Sweet is paired with the Spleen and Earth phase in the canonical correspondence scheme. The upper-middle abdominal point indicates the TCM digestive target-organ projection, not the location of sweet taste or a biomedical organ effect.
What is Xīn 辛 — Pungent → Lung?
Pungent is paired with the Lung and Metal phase in the five-flavor system. The thoracic point is a functional target-organ projection for the Lung network and is not a surface map of respiratory pharmacology.
What is Xián 鹹 — Salty → Kidney?
Salty is paired with the Kidney and Water phase in the Neijing correspondence tables. The lower-trunk point shows the classical target-organ association with a wide uncertainty radius; it is not a claim that salt travels to or treats the kidneys in a biomedical sense.