Drinking Tea to Sober Up Makes Drunkenness Worse

When drinking with close friends, a thousand cups may still be too few, and only when drunk does one realize the vastness of the world. When people are still in high spirits, they often drink freely and end up dead drunk. After getting drunk, many people drink a few cups of strong tea to sober up. In fact, drinking strong tea cannot help with sobriety, but instead adds fuel to the fire — hence the saying: drinking tea to sober up makes drunkenness worse. Why is this? Alcohol first directly damages the gastric mucosa, leading to gastritis, gastric or duodenal ulcers, and even gastric bleeding. Strong tea also stimulates the gastric mucosa to a certain extent, inducing gastric acid secretion. Thus, drinking strong tea after alcohol consumption further aggravates the damage to the gastric mucosa.

Alcohol accelerates blood flow, dilates blood vessels, and greatly excites the heart, increasing heart rate. The theophylline in tea also has a stimulating effect on the heart. The combined effect places an even greater burden on the heart. Medical research reveals that the metabolic process of alcohol in the body is as follows: after alcohol is absorbed by the digestive tract, more than 90% is converted into acetaldehyde by liver alcohol dehydrogenase, then into acetic acid by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, and finally broken down into carbon dioxide and water for excretion. However, when tea is consumed after drinking, the theophylline in tea is rapidly excreted by the kidneys, producing a diuretic effect. At this point, alcohol that has been converted into acetaldehyde but not yet into acetic acid, let alone carbon dioxide and water, is excreted through the kidneys. Since acetaldehyde strongly irritates the kidneys, this can harm health. Therefore, drinking tea after alcohol consumption is not advisable. Instead, one may drink some vinegar, fruit juice, or sugar water, or eat some fruit.

Can Medicine Be Taken with Tea?

Whether tea can be taken with medication is not a simple yes or no. In most cases, it is not recommended to take medicine with tea, especially certain iron-containing drugs (ferrous sulfate, ferrous carbonate, ferric ammonium citrate, etc.), aluminum-containing drugs (such as aluminum hydroxide), and certain preparations (such as proteins). These Western medicines may combine with the polyphenols in tea to form precipitates, affecting the efficacy of the drugs. Some Chinese herbal medicines, such as Ephedra and Coptis, are also generally not suitable for concurrent use with tea. In addition, tea contains caffeine, which has a stimulating effect. Therefore, when taking sedatives, hypnotics, or cough suppressants, it is also not advisable to use tea to swallow the medicine, to avoid drug conflict and reduced efficacy. It is generally believed that tea should not be consumed within two hours after taking medication.

However, when taking vitamin drugs, stimulants, diuretics, or lipid-lowering and blood sugar-lowering drugs, tea can generally be used to swallow the medication. For example, when taking vitamin C with tea, the catechins in tea can help the absorption and accumulation of vitamin C in the human body. Tea itself has stimulating, diuretic, lipid-lowering, and blood sugar-lowering effects, so when taking such drugs, tea can have a synergistic effect.

How to Properly Store Tea at Home

Whether bought in composite film bags or in tin cans, tea must be kept in a dry place. For loose tea, it can be wrapped in clean white paper and placed in a jar or container with a desiccant (such as unslaked lime in lumps), with the lid tightly sealed. If the amount of tea is small and already very dry, it can also be sealed in two layers of moisture-proof film bags and stored in a refrigerator. This method can keep the tea essentially unchanged for at least half a year. In summary, the conditions for storing tea are: first, it must be kept dry; second, it is best stored at a low temperature (around 5°C).