When you are feeling unwell, don't rush to take medicine. Sometimes, drinking tea can provide appropriate relief. The following four types of tea can address your various discomforts.

Drink Black Tea to Prevent Flu

In winter, black tea is considered the best choice. Black tea is sweet and warm, nourishing the body's阳气 (vital energy). It is rich in protein and sugar, generating warmth and enhancing the body's cold resistance, while also aiding digestion and reducing greasiness. In some regions of China, it's customary to drink black tea with sugar, milk, or sesame, which not only warms the body but also adds nutrition and strengthens health. Research has found that black tea can reduce the incidence of stroke and heart disease—conditions prevalent in winter. Therefore, elderly individuals with cardiovascular diseases can benefit from regularly brewing a warm cup of black tea in winter, warming the body and preventing illness. Additionally, gargling with or directly drinking black tea helps prevent influenza, which is also necessary in winter. Furthermore, drinking black tea has unique benefits in preventing osteoporosis and reducing the incidence of skin cancer, broadening its appeal. As a fermented tea, black tea is mild and less irritating, making it especially suitable for those with weak stomachs or generally frail constitutions.

Turn to Green Tea for Internal Heat

Dry winter weather, combined with a preference for oily and spicy foods, often leads to internal heat, troubling many with issues like constipation, dry mouth, or even mouth sores. This is where green tea can help. Green tea is unfermented, cooling in nature, and can clear heat. Thus, it's most effective for reducing internal heat, promoting saliva production, quenching thirst, aiding digestion, resolving phlegm, and even accelerating the healing of mild gastric ulcers. It also helps lower blood lipids and prevent vascular hardening. Therefore, those prone to internal heat, regular smokers and drinkers, and generally overweight individuals (often with an excess-heat constitution) are well-suited to drinking green tea. However, individuals with cold and weak stomachs should avoid it.

Relieve Dry Mouth with Oolong Tea

Oolong tea is a semi-fermented tea, intermediate between green and black tea, with a bluish-brown color, hence also known as "Qing Cha" (blue tea). In flavor, oolong tea combines the freshness and natural floral aroma of green tea with the mellow richness of black tea. It is neither too cold nor too hot, moderately warm, thus moisturizing the skin and throat, promoting saliva production, and clearing accumulated heat from the body, helping the body adapt to environmental changes. Indoor air tends to be dry in winter, often causing dry mouth and chapped lips. Brewing a cup of oolong tea at this time can alleviate the discomfort of dryness. Additionally, oolong tea effectively breaks down proteins and fats, preventing fat accumulation in the liver. For those worried about gaining weight in winter, oolong tea also has certain weight-loss benefits.

Combat Low Mood with Herbal Tea

Herbal teas include jasmine tea, magnolia tea, osmanthus tea, rose tea, etc., made by scenting green tea leaves with various fragrant flowers. Generally, herbal teas can nourish the liver and gallbladder, strengthen the limbs, and promote meridian circulation. Taking jasmine tea as an example, it can clear heat, relieve summer heat, strengthen the spleen, and calm the nerves, showing good effects in treating dysentery and preventing stomach pain. Honeysuckle tea can clear heat, detoxify, refresh the mind, quench thirst, and is relatively effective against sore throat, also good for preventing influenza. Therefore, it's advisable to choose appropriately in winter. Especially for women who are prone to depression, irritability, and mood swings during menopause or around their menstrual period, drinking herbal tea can help dispel melancholy.

Beauty Tea

Let's look at the secret recipes of beauty tea... Don't easily discard used tea leaves and cooled tea liquor. Applying them externally to affected areas can often rescue the skin in times of need.

Experts remind that tea leaves suitable for skin application should be soft and fine-textured. Lightly fermented oolong teas, such as Tieguanyin, Phoenix Dan Cong, and Taiwanese High Mountain Oolong, are best. Those coarse tea stems and rough leaves—you only need to touch them to know they are not suitable for the face.

Lighten Dark Circles

For panda eyes caused by staying up late, mix barley and green tea, and apply warm under the lower eyelids to eliminate dark circles and puffiness.

Shrink Pores

Use leftover cool green tea (overnight tea is fine if kept cool) as a cleansing toner. Soak a cotton pad and wipe the skin. The catechins can shrink pores and increase skin elasticity.

Astringent and Whitening

Add a little Dahurian angelica root powder to green tea and apply as a mask to tighten pores and whiten the skin.

Whiten and Fade Spots

Mix rose green tea with a little fruit vinegar and pat onto the face for astringent, whitening, and spot-fading effects.

Revitalize and Anti-Aging

When skin looks dull, mix a little cinnamon, saffron, rose powder with warm black tea, and apply on the forehead and cheeks to restore skin radiance and vitality.

Fight Acne

Mix a small amount of coptis powder with cool green tea and apply on affected areas to eliminate annoying acne.