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Fagopyrum tataricum
Also called Green buckwheat, India Wheat, Japanese Buckwheat, India Buckwheat, Tartarian Buckwheat, Duckwheat
Tartary buckwheat is an annual food crop in the buckwheat family, grown for its seeds (groats) that are used like grain, and for buckwheat tea. It is more bitter than common buckwheat and is well suited to cool, temperate climates.
Fagopyrum tataricum, also known as Tartary buckwheat, green buckwheat, ku qiao, Tatar buckwheat, or bitter buckwheat, is a domesticated food plant in the genus Fagopyrum in the family Polygonaceae. With another species in the same genus, common buckwheat, it is often counted as a cereal, but the buckwheats are not closely related to true cereals.
Tartary buckwheat is more bitter and contains more rutin than common buckwheat. It also contains other bioactive components such as flavonoids, phenolic acids, 2-hydroxybenzylamine and quercitrin.
Fagopyrum tataricum contains aromatic substances. The most important difference when compared to the aroma of Fagopyrum esculentum is the absence of salicylaldehyde and presence of naphthalene.
Known in Chinese as "bitter buckwheat" (Chinese: 苦荞麦; pinyin: kǔqiáomài) and in Japan as dattan-soba (韃靼蕎麦/ダッタンソバ; 'Tartary buckwheat'), the plant was domesticated as a crop in East Asia and is also being cultivated in Europe and North America. While it is an unfamiliar food in the West, it is common in the Himalayan region today, as well as other regions in Southwest China such as Sichuan province. Tartary buckwheat is commonly roasted to make buckwheat tea, and it can also be distilled to make alcohol. While not traditionally eaten in Japan, due to its high rutin content it was briefly popular as a health fad in Japan in the late 1990s.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Fagopyrum tataricum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
