What Is Dihydromyricetin? Chemistry, Natural Sources, and How It’s Made

Written and reviewed by Dr. Xiaoyan Qiu · July 2026

What Dihydromyricetin Is

Dihydromyricetin (DHM), also known by its older chemical name ampelopsin, is a flavanonol — a specific structural subclass of flavonoid — most commonly known today for the mechanism research on alcohol metabolism covered in our companion article. But before any of that research existed, DHM was simply a naturally occurring plant compound with a defined chemical identity: a molecular formula of C₁₅H₁₂O₈, and — as the name suggests — the dihydro-reduced form of a better-known flavonoid, myricetin.^[1] For the full structural comparison between the two — including how that distinction plays out in skin-brightening and antioxidant formulation — see our companion article, Dihydromyricetin vs Myricetin: The Structural Relationship. This article covers where DHM actually comes from in nature, and why one plant source dominates commercial supply so completely.

Two Natural Sources, One Enormous Gap

DHM occurs in more than one plant, but treating its natural sources as roughly interchangeable is a mistake worth correcting directly, because the quantitative gap between the two most commonly cited sources is not small. Vine tea (Ampelopsis grossedentata), a plant in the grape family (Vitaceae) traditionally called “Teng Cha” (藤茶) in China, contains DHM at concentrations of 20–40% of dry leaf weight — an extraordinarily high natural concentration for a single specialized metabolite, and the reason vine tea is described in the scientific literature as the richest known resource of the compound.^[1] Regional variation exists even within vine tea itself: one comparative analysis found DHM content of 21.42%, 20.17%, and 16.47% of dry weight in vine tea sourced from Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangxi provinces respectively — meaningful variation, but all still within that high-concentration range. Our companion product page covers the full sourcing comparison table and specification criteria in detail; the number worth highlighting here is how large the gap to the next most-cited source actually is.

Hovenia dulcis (the Japanese raisin tree) is the other plant most frequently mentioned alongside vine tea as a DHM source, and it does contain the compound — but at a dramatically different order of magnitude than “substantially lower” might suggest. A 2023 study measuring DHM content in water and methanol extracts of dried Hovenia dulcis fruit and peduncle found concentrations of just 0.0012% and 0.0015% (w/w) respectively — roughly four to five orders of magnitude lower than vine tea’s natural leaf content.^[2] Hovenia dulcis has a genuine, separate traditional-use history connected to alcohol and liver health, but the research literature increasingly attributes that traditional use to other compounds present in the fruit and peduncle — particularly polysaccharides — rather than to DHM specifically, which the fruit and peduncle simply do not contain in meaningful quantity. For full species-confirmation and COA criteria when sourcing either material, see our bulk dihydromyricetin powder product page.

Traditional Use and the Research That Followed

Vine tea’s status as the dominant natural DHM source is not a recent discovery — the plant has a documented history of well over 1,200 years of use as an herbal tea in southern China. That long history of traditional use is part of what eventually drew formal research attention to DHM, culminating in the foundational mechanism research covered in detail in our companion article, Dihydromyricetin and Alcohol Metabolism: What the Research Actually Shows. This article intentionally does not revisit that mechanism research — the two pieces are meant to be read together, one covering what DHM is and where it comes from, the other covering what has actually been studied about it.

From Leaf to Powder: Extraction and Purity

Commercial DHM production starts with vine tea leaf and stem material, which is processed through solvent extraction — methods documented in the literature include ethanol-based extraction and more specialized techniques such as chelating extraction and high-speed counter-current chromatography, developed specifically to improve yield and purity from the raw plant material.^[1] Because vine tea’s natural DHM content is already high relative to most botanical actives, achieving high-purity standardized extract requires less aggressive concentration than sourcing from a naturally dilute raw material would — one practical reason vine tea has become the default commercial source rather than a marketing preference.

DHM also has a documented stability profile worth knowing at the sourcing stage: the compound is more stable under acidic conditions (pH 1.0–5.0) and becomes progressively less stable and more prone to degradation under alkaline conditions, particularly in the pH 6.0–8.0 range.^[1] This has direct implications for formulation — a DHM-containing product’s pH environment affects how much of the labeled content survives shelf life, which is a separate question from raw material purity at the point of manufacture.

Valeherb sources dihydromyricetin exclusively from vine tea (Ampelopsis grossedentata), standardized to 98% purity by HPLC. Full specifications, COA documentation, and current regulatory guidance are available on our bulk dihydromyricetin powder product page.

Frequently Asked Questions

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