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In 1716, the Jesuit Lafitau discovered a variety of ginseng in Canada. This gave rise within a few years to a new commercial route linking North America to China, where demand for the root, the supreme remedy according to Chinese pharmacopoeia, was strong. By the early 1750s, the rise in price was spectacular, but the bubble suddenly burst in 1752. This article uncovers the myriad actors who played a part in the formation of this bubble, all along the line from commoditization to commercialization. By doing so, it aims at offering, through the lens of ginseng, a snapshot of globalization as it was driven forward by commercial capitalism in the middle of the eighteenth century. The article makes use of a combination of East India companies’ archives and merchants’ private papers to track down the trade in ginseng on a global scale. Ultimately, it argues that, far from being the result of a simple supply and demand equation, the bursting of the bubble should be understood as the result of the French Indies’ Company’s monopolistic strategy, as the board aimed (and failed) to secure full control of the Canton market.