Objective To study the water extraction process of Zhuyu Zhitong gel paste .Methods With the yields of paeoniflorin and the dry paste as target ,the water extraction process of Zhuyu Zhitong gel paste was optimized by an orthogo-nal experimental design based on the single factor experiment .Results The optimized water extraction process of Zhuyu Zhi-tong gel paste was soaking the materials for 1 h with 8 times of water ,then extracting 1 .5 h for three times with the same a-mount of water .Conclusion The optimized extraction process was consistent ,reasonable and feasible for large production .