Founded in 1669 and appointed supplier to the imperial court in 1723, Tongrentang is the most famous traditional Chinese medicine house in the country, and its flagship still trades on Dashilan Street where it has stood for centuries. The shop floor is lined with lacquered cabinets of dried herbs, deer antler, ginseng, and prepared pills, and doctors of Chinese medicine see patients on the upper floors.
You do not need to buy anything to find it interesting — the smell, the apothecary drawers, and the sheer continuity of the place make it a working museum of Chinese pharmacology. It anchors the old-trade character of Dashilan's lanes alongside the silk and hat shops nearby.