Herbal tea, also called green grass tea, is not actually tea but a type of traditional Chinese medicine, a herbal beverage popular in southern China. During the hot summer, people in Guangdong and Fujian regions often choose to drink herbal tea to relieve summer heat. Some brew it at home, while others buy processed, ready-to-drink herbal tea beverages from shops.

Since herbal tea is a medicine, can people drink it casually? Here, Qingyun answers for you:

1. The Medicinal Properties of Herbal Tea

Herbal tea is brewed from cooling Chinese herbs, possessing effects such as clearing heat, detoxifying, reducing internal heat, and quenching thirst. It is suitable for consumption during hot summers and humid weather, helping to clear heat and relieve thirst. However, drinking herbal tea should be moderate. Appropriate consumption is beneficial to the body, but excessive intake can be harmful, especially in summer when people might drink too much due to thirst. Excessive consumption can damage yang energy and the spleen and stomach, leading to problems like poor appetite, indigestion, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Over time, symptoms such as general weakness and lethargy may appear, affecting daily life and work.

Thus, drinking herbal tea in moderation is acceptable, but overconsumption can cause various adverse reactions like harming the spleen and stomach, impacting human health.

2. Suitable Groups for Consumption

Most herbal teas are cooling in nature and can help reduce internal heat. Who needs to reduce heat? 1. Men: Most men have an excess heat constitution, prone to internal heat, and need to drink herbal tea to reduce it. 2. Outdoor workers and manual laborers: Those who work outdoors, especially in hot weather, need herbal tea to dispel summer heat and reduce excess heat. 3. People with irritable and easily angered temperaments: Frequent anger can harm the liver, and herbal tea can help calm agitation and reduce heat.

Men, outdoor workers, manual laborers, and easily angered individuals should drink more herbal tea to promote fluid production, reduce heat, and dispel excess heat.

3. Unsuitable Groups

1. The elderly are not suitable for drinking herbal tea. Older adults often have insufficient yang energy and weak constitutions; excessive consumption can further damage yang energy. 2. Children are not suitable for drinking herbal tea. Their kidney organs are not fully developed, and they cannot adjust and adapt to the cooling stimulation of herbal tea as quickly as adults, which can easily lead to discomfort such as abdominal pain and diarrhea. 3. People with cold constitutions or weak spleens and stomachs should drink less herbal tea because its cold nature can easily harm the stomach. Those with pre-existing spleen and stomach issues may develop problems like gastric ulcers from overconsumption. 4. Women during menstruation should not drink herbal tea. During this special period, women's bodies are in a cold and deficient state; drinking herbal tea can cause symptoms like dysmenorrhea and irregular menstruation.

It is clear that the elderly, children, individuals with cold constitutions, and women during menstruation are not suitable for drinking herbal tea.